Hitherto, he
thought, I have seen him tamed by sorrow and
anxiety, now the mind is regaining its natural tension.
But he must in decency interest himself for
the unhappy Middlemas.
The General returned into the apartment a
minute or two afterwards, and addressed Hartley
in his usual tone of politeness, though apparently
still under great embarrassment, which he in vain
endeavoured to conceal.
``Mrs Witherington is better,'' he said, ``and
will be glad to see you before dinner. You dine
with us, I hope?''
Hartley bowed.
``Mrs Witherington is rather subject to this
sort of nervous fits, and she has been much harassed
of late by grief and apprehension. When she recovers
from them, it is a few minutes before she
can collect her ideas, and during such intervals---
to speak very confidentially to you, my dear Doctor
Hartley---she speaks sometimes about imaginary
events which have never happened, and sometimes
about distressing occurrences in an early period of
life. I am not, therefore, willing that any one but
myself, or her old attendant Mrs Lopez, should be
with her on such occasions.''
Hartley admitted that a certain degree of light-headedness
was often the consequence of nervous fits.
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