She rested in bed all day, dozing and dreaming and thinking; all night between the slow-pacing hours she had long waking intervals of strange, half-troubled, half-mystic musings. She saw herself, so she imagined, dead;--laid out in her coffin with flowers round her; but as she looked at her own stiffened corpse she knew it was not herself, she thus saw, but only the image of what she had been. She, Delicia, was another being--a being through whose fine essence light and joy were flowing. She fancied she heard sweet voices murmuring in her ears,--
'Sorrowful Delicia! Slain Delicia! This is not thine end--work has but begun for thee, though earth has no more part in either thy toil or pleasure! Come, Delicia! Love is not dead because of human treachery; Love is immortal, unconquerable, unchangeable, and waits for thee elsewhere, Delicia! Come and see!'
And so persistently was she haunted by the impression that something new and strange awaited her, that almost unconsciously to herself she began to be expectant of a sudden change in her destinies, though what that change might be she could not by herself determine.
When she rose from her bed to resume her daily work an idea flashed upon her,--an idea bold and new, and suggesting itself forcibly for brief and brilliant literary treatment. Seized by this fresh inspiration, she shut herself up in her study and worked day after day, forgetting her own troubles in the fervour of creative energy. She saw no visitors and went nowhere; her morning ride was all the relaxation she permitted herself; and she grew paler and paler as she toiled unremittingly with her pen, and lived a life of almost unbroken solitude all through the height of the London 'season.' The people one calls by courtesy 'friends,' grew tired of leaving cards which were not responded to, and 'society' began to whisper that 'it was rather singular, my dear, that Lord Carlyon should suddenly have left London and gone by himself to Paris, while that extremely peculiar wife of his remained at home shut up as closely as if she had the small-pox.' 'Perhaps she _had_ the small-pox,' suggested the Noodle section of opinion, deeming the remark witty. Whereupon Lady Brancewith, joining in the general chitter-chatter, ventured upon the scathing observation that 'if she had, it would make her more popular in society, as no one could then be angry with her for her good looks.' Which suggestion was voted 'charming' of Lady Brancewith; and 'so generous of Lady Brancewith, being so lovely herself, to even consider for a moment in a favourable light the looks of a "female authoress!"--quite too sweet of Lady Brancewith!'
