He passed softly into Rosa’s room.  She was lying on the bed, in a loose white robe, over which fell the long braids of her dark hair.  The warm coloring had entirely faded from her cheeks, leaving only that faintest reflection of gold which she inherited from her mother; and the thinness and pallor of her face made her large eyes seem larger and darker.  They were open, but strangely veiled; as if shadows were resting on the soul, like fogs upon a landscape.  When Gerald bent over her, she did not see him, though she seemed to be looking at him.  He called her by the tenderest names; he cried out in agony, “O Rosa, speak to me, darling!” She did not hear him.  He had never before been so deeply moved.  He groaned aloud, and, covering his face with his hands, he wept.

When Tulee, hearing the sound, crept in to see whether all was well with her mistress, she found him in that posture.  She went out silently, but when she was beyond hearing she muttered to herself, “Ise glad he’s got any human feelin’.”

After the lapse of a few moments, he came to her, saying, “O Tulee, do you think she’s going to die?  Couldn’t a doctor save her?”

“No, Massa, I don’t believe she’s going to die,” replied Tulee; “but she’ll be very weak for a great while.  I don’t think all the doctors in the world could do poor Missy Rosy any good.  It’s her soul that’s sick, Massa; and nobody but the Great Doctor above can cure that.”

Her words cut him like a knife; but, without any attempt to excuse the wrong he had done, he said:  “I am going to Savannah for the winter.  I will leave Tom and Chloe at the plantation, with instructions to do whatever you want done.  If I am needed, you can send Tom for me.”

The melancholy wreck he had seen saddened him for a day or two; those eyes, with their mysterious expression of somnambulism, haunted him, and led him to drown uncomfortable feelings in copious draughts of wine.  But, volatile as he was impressible, the next week saw him the gayest of the gay in parties at Savannah, where his pretty little bride was quite the fashion.

At the cottage there was little change, except that Chloe, by her master’s permission, became a frequent visitor.  She was an affectionate, useful creature, with good voice and ear, and a little wild gleam of poetry in her fervid eyes.  When she saw Rosa lying there so still, helpless and unconscious as a new-born babe, she said, solemnly, “De sperit hab done gone somewhar.”  She told many stories of wonderful cures she had performed by prayer; and she would kneel by the bedside, hour after hour, holding the invalid’s hand, praying, “O Lord, fotch back de sperit!  Fotch back de sperit!  Fotch back de sperit!” she would continue to repeat in ascending tones, till they rose to wild imploring.  Tulee, looking on one day, said, “Poor Missy Rosy don’t hear nothin’ ye say, though ye call so loud.”