From that day the improvement began to disappear again. She gradually
lost the healthy colour which life's last kiss had brought to her
cheeks. She no longer had that delightful restlessness of the
convalescent, that longing to move about which only a short time ago had
made her take her father's arm constantly for a stroll. No more gay
words sprang from her mind to her lips, as they had done at first when
she had forgotten for a time all suffering; there was no more of the
happy prattle which had been the result of returning hope. She was too
languid to talk or even to answer questions.
"No, there's nothing the matter with me--I am all right;" but the words
fell from her lips with an accent of pain, sadness, and resignation.
She suffered from tightness of breath now, and constantly felt a weight
on her chest, which her respiration had difficulty in lifting. A sort of
constraint and vague discomfort, caused by this, made itself felt
throughout her whole system, attacking her nerves, taking from her all
vital energy and all inclination to move about, keeping her crushed and
submissive, without any strength to fight against it or to do anything.
Her father persuaded her to try the effect of a cupping-glass.