Moreover, the young woman had an oily, persuasive
tongue; and she who persuades us is stronger than he who convinces us.
Thus influenced, Sir Charles walked every day in the garden with his
wife, and forbore all direct allusion to her condition, though his
conversation was redolent of it.
He was still subject to sudden collapses of the intellect; but he
became conscious when they were coming on; and at the first warning he
would insist on burying himself in his room.
After some days he consented to take short drives with Lady Bassett in
the open carriage. This made her very joyful. Sir Charles refused to
enter a single house, so high was his pride and so great his terror
lest he should expose himself; but it was a great point gained that she
could take him about the county, and show him in the character of a
mere invalid.
Every thing now looked like a cure, slow, perhaps, but progressive; and
Lady Bassett had her joyful hours, yet not without a bitter alloy: her
divining mind asked itself what she should say and do when Sir Charles
should be quite recovered. This thought tormented her, and sometimes so
goaded her that she hated Mary Wells for her well-meant interference,
and, by a natural recoil from the familiarity circumstances had forced
on her, treated that young woman with great coldness and hauteur.
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