Hesitation was over now. My father was most anxious to send her,
and she set forth, secure that she could infuse life, energy, and
resolution into her son, when those two poor boys had failed.
It was not, however, Martyn who met her, but his friend Thomson,
with the tidings that the suffering had become so severe as to
prevent Martyn from leaving Baden, not only on his brother's
account, but because Lady Peacock had at last taken alarm, and was
so uncontrollable in her distress that he was needed to keep her out
of the sickroom, where her presence, poor thing, only did mischief.
She evidently had a certain affection for her husband; and it was
the more piteous that in his present state he only regarded her as
the tempter who had ruined his life--his false Duessa, who had led
him away from Una. On one unhappy evening he had been almost
maddened by her insisting on arguing with him; he called her a hag,
declared she had been the death of his children, the death of that
dear one--could she not let him alone now she had been the death of
himself?
When Martyn took her away, she wept bitterly, and told enough to
make the misery of their life apparent, when the gaiety was over,
and regrets and recriminations set in.
However, there came a calmer interval, when the suffering passed
off, but in the manner which made the German doctor intimate that
hope was over.
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