‘Well! an’ if thou does spoil it, love, I’ll get thee another.  I make account of riches only for thee; that I may be able to get thee whativer thou’s a fancy for, for either thysel’, or thy mother.’

She lifted her pale face from her pillow, and put up her lips to kiss him for these words.

Perhaps on that day Philip reached the zenith of his life’s happiness.

CHAPTER XXXI

EVIL OMENS

The first step in Philip’s declension happened in this way.  Sylvia had made rapid progress in her recovery; but now she seemed at a stationary point of weakness; wakeful nights succeeding to languid days.  Occasionally she caught a little sleep in the afternoons, but she usually awoke startled and feverish.

One afternoon Philip had stolen upstairs to look at her and his child; but the efforts he made at careful noiselessness made the door creak on its hinges as he opened it.  The woman employed to nurse her had taken the baby into another room that no sound might rouse her from her slumber; and Philip would probably have been warned against entering the chamber where his wife lay sleeping had he been perceived by the nurse.  As it was, he opened the door, made a noise, and Sylvia started up, her face all one flush, her eyes wild and uncertain; she looked about her as if she did not know where she was; pushed the hair off her hot forehead; all which actions Philip saw, dismayed and regretful.  But he kept still, hoping that she would lie down and compose herself.  Instead she stretched out her arms imploringly, and said, in a voice full of yearning and tears,—­

‘Oh!  Charley! come to me—­come to me!’ and then as she more fully became aware of the place where she was, her actual situation, she sank back and feebly began to cry.  Philip’s heart boiled within him; any man’s would under the circumstances, but he had the sense of guilty concealment to aggravate the intensity of his feelings.  Her weak cry after another man, too, irritated him, partly through his anxious love, which made him wise to know how much physical harm she was doing herself.  At this moment he stirred, or unintentionally made some sound:  she started up afresh, and called out,—­

‘Oh, who’s theere?  Do, for God’s sake, tell me who yo’ are!’

‘It’s me,’ said Philip, coming forwards, striving to keep down the miserable complication of love and jealousy, and remorse and anger, that made his heart beat so wildly, and almost took him out of himself.  Indeed, he must have been quite beside himself for the time, or he could never have gone on to utter the unwise, cruel words he did.  But she spoke first, in a distressed and plaintive tone of voice.

’Oh, Philip, I’ve been asleep, and yet I think I was awake!  And I saw Charley Kinraid as plain as iver I see thee now, and he wasn’t drowned at all.  I’m sure he’s alive somewheere; he were so clear and life-like.  Oh! what shall I do? what shall I do?’