his father came and sat with him and
went again; and still there was no reference to the late tragedy or to the
former troubles which had brought it on. Did he remember, and conceal his
dreadful knowledge? or was the whole blotted from his mind? This was the problem
that kept us watching and trembling all day when we were in his company, and
held us awake at night when we were in our lonely beds. We knew not even which
alternative to hope for, both appearing so unnatural, and pointing so directly
to an unsound brain. Once this fear offered, I observed his conduct with
sedulous particularity. Something of the child he exhibited: a cheerfulness
quite foreign to his previous character, an interest readily aroused, and then
very tenacious, in small matters which he had heretofore despised. When he was
stricken down, I was his only confidant, and I may say his only friend, and he
was on terms of division with his wife; upon his recovery, all was changed, the
past forgotten, the wife first and even single in his thoughts. He turned to her
with all his emotions, like a child to its mother, and seemed secure of
sympathy; called her in all his needs with something of that querulous
familiarity that marks a certainty of indulgence; and I must say, in justice to
the woman, he was never disappointed. To her, indeed, this changed behaviour was
inexpressibly affecting; and I think she felt it secretly as a reproach; so that
I have seen her, in early days, escape out of the room that she might indulge
herself in weeping. But to me the change appeared not natural; and viewing it
along with all the rest, I began to wonder, with many head-shakings, whether his
reason were perfectly erect.
    As this doubt stretched over many years, endured indeed until my master's
death, and clouded all our subsequent relations, I may well consider of it more
at large. When he was able to resume some charge of his affairs, I had many
opportunities to try him with precision. There was no lack of understanding, nor
yet of authority; but the old continuous interest had quite departed; he grew
readily fatigued, and fell to yawning; and he carried into money relations,
where it is certainly out of place, a facility that bordered upon slackness.
True, since we had no longer the exactions of the Master to contend against,
there was the less occasion to raise strictness into principle or do battle for
a farthing. True, again, there was nothing excessive in