I believe that insane people always know the feelings and the plans of
those about them. I knew they were thinking of taking me to an asylum. I
knew, too, that I was the means of Jamie's being sick, and that they
tried to keep it from me. I read in their faces,--"Jamie got a fever
that wet night at the shore; but don't tell Joseph."

As I look back upon that long gloom, a shadowy remembrance comes to me
of standing in the door-way of a darkened chamber. A minister in white
bands stood at the foot of the bed, performing the marriage-ceremony. I
remember Jamie's paleness, and the heavenly look in Mary's face, as she
stood at the bedside, holding his right hand in hers. Mother passed her
hand over my head, and whispered to me that Mary wanted to take care of
him.

One of my fancies was, that a dark bird, like a vulture, constantly
pursued me. All day I was trying to escape him, and all the while I
slept he was at my pillow.

As I came to myself I found this to be a form given by my excited
imagination to a dark thought which would give me no rest. It was the
idea that my conduct had been the means of Margaret's death. I never
dared question. They said it was fever,--that others died of the same.
If I could but have spoken to her,--could but have seen, once more, the
same old look and smile! This was an ever-present thought.

But I did afterwards. I told her everything. She knows my folly and my
grief.

It was in the night-time. I was walking through the woods, on the road