I entered an empty compartment, but just as the train was starting the woman whom I had seen visiting at the asylum got in after me, and we were alone together. She glanced at me shyly several times, as if she wished to say something; and then, suddenly clutching my hand, she burst into tears: "Oh! I am so thankful--so thankful! Did you see my poor girl to-day? Yes, I know you did, for I saw you look at her beautiful golden hair--whenever I see the sun shining on cornfields I think of my Mabel's hair. Well, for nigh three years Mabel has sat in that awful place; she has never taken her hands away from her face, nor looked up, nor spoken a word, till this afternoon; and then, whether it was the doctor, or your blue cloak--but, as you saw, she stood up and spoke, and after that she ate some grapes, and knew me again, and grumbled at the way they had done her hair--the nurse says that is the best sign of all, and so does the doctor. Oh! thank God! thank God!" and the poor woman sobbed in choking spasms of joy.
I felt that I and my blue cloak were such unconscious agents in the restoration of reason that her gratitude was quite embarrassing.
"Yes, she has been in there just on three years; acute melancholia, they call it, brought on by nervous shock. Our doctor at home always gave me some hope, but not the people in there. I suppose they see such a lot of misery, they get into the habit of despair. Mabel is my only child; my husband died just after she was born, so you can guess what she has been to me. Fortunately, I understood the greengrocery business; so when I lost my husband I went on with the shop just the same, and was able to give her a good education. She took to her books wonderful, and got a scholarship on to the High School; she learnt French and German, and went on to Pitman's College for shorthand and typewriting; and at eighteen she got an engagement as typist and secretary to a City firm. She was a wonderful pretty girl, my Mabel; just like a lily, with her slight figure and golden head; and the men came about her like flies; but she would never go with any of them; she was such a one to come home and spend her evenings quietly with me, reading or sewing. Then suddenly I saw a change had come over my girl; one of the gentlemen in the office had been after her, and she had fallen in love with him, head over heels, as girls will. I wasn't glad; perhaps it was a mother's jealousy, perhaps it was second-sight a-warning of me; but I couldn't be pleased nohow. He came up to tea on Sunday afternoon, and I hated him at once; if ever liar and scoundrel was written on a man's face, it was there plain for all to read, except my poor child, and she was blind as folks in love always are. Then, though he wasn't a gentleman as I count gentlemen, he was above her in station, and I could see as he looked down on me and the shop; and, as I told my poor girl, them unequal marriages don't lead to no good. But there, I saw it was no use a-talking; we only fell out over the wretch--the only time she ever spoke nasty to me was over him--I saw she would only marry him on the sly if I said 'No'--we must let our children go to their doom when they are in love--and so I took my savings out of the bank and gave her a trousseau of the best; and all the time my heart was heavy as lead. Folks used to laugh at me and tell me I looked as if I were getting ready for a funeral instead of a wedding. There's many a true word spoken in jest; and that was how I felt all the time--a great, black cloud of horror over everything.