Afterwards she passed a night of a very
agitating kind. She dozed and dreamed, and awoke and dreamed again. Her
life seemed all to run into dreams,--a strange confusion was about her,
through which she could define nothing. Once waking up, as she supposed,
she saw a group round her bed, the doctor,--with a candle in his hand,
(how should the doctor be there in the middle of the night?) holding her
hand or feeling her pulse; little Mary at one side, crying,--why should
the child cry?--and Jervis, very, anxious, pouring something into a
glass. There were other faces there which she was sure must have come out
of a dream,--so unlikely was it that they should be collected in her
bedchamber,--and all with a sort of halo of feverish light about them; a
magnified and mysterious importance. This strange scene, which she did
not understand, seemed to make itself visible all in a moment out of the
darkness, and then disappeared again as suddenly as it came.
III.
When she woke again, it was morning; and her first waking consciousness
was, that she must be much better. The choking sensation in her throat
was altogether gone. She had no desire to cough--no difficulty in
breathing. She had a fancy, however, that she must be still dreaming,
for she felt sure that some one had called her by her name, "Mary.
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