" And there was no
skeleton to be hidden or excused.
And Arthur Stuart, believing that Alice Cheney's life and reason
depended upon his making her his wife, resolved to end the bitter
struggle with his own heart and with fate, and do what seemed to be
his duty, toward the girl and toward his mother. When the wedding
took place, the saddest face at the ceremony, save that of the groom,
was the face of the bride's father. But the bride was radiant, and
Mabel and the Baroness walked in clouds.
CHAPTER XVII
Alice did not rally in health or spirits after her marriage, as her
family, friends and physician had anticipated. She remained nervous,
ailing and despondent.
"Should maternity come to her, she would doubtless be very much
improved in health afterward," the doctor said, and Mabel,
remembering how true a similar prediction proved in her case, despite
her rebellion against it, was not sorry when she knew that Alice was
to become a mother, scarcely a year after her marriage.
But Alice grew more and more despondent as the months passed by; and
after the birth of her son, the young mother developed dementia of
the most hopeless kind. The best specialists in two worlds were
employed to bring her out of the state of settled melancholy into
which she had fallen, but all to no avail.
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