When Catherine recovered her consciousness, or rather woke from utter insensibility, (for it was long before her mind regained its full tone,) she was mounted upon a horse on which she was supported by two men, one riding on each side, who sustained her on the saddle, and directed the steps of her palfrey. She began to speak, but her words were wails, low and faint, and half lost amid the sough of the breeze, and the crash of pebbles under the horses' feet; and, indeed, it was soon apparent that she had exchanged a state of dreamless lethargy only for one of partial delirium. To this condition she had been fast verging for several days, during all which time, both asleep and awake, her mind had been in a state of constant tension, enduring jar after jar, and blow after blow, until its fraying fibres were one by one giving way, and a few narrow threads alone were all that kept it from the snap that ends in madness. Sleeplessness is a disease, which sometimes is prolonged, until insanity or death puts a close to the scene. The mind does not always slumber with the body: and in such instances, the spirit consumes amid the visions and dreams of night, as fast as amid the torments of day, until it lapses into the oblivion of dissolution or mental derangement. Such had been the case with the Captain's daughter: even slumber had brought no release to her spirit; and the last shock, combining in effect with a long train of benumbing influences, had reduced it to a condition in which it hovered between imbecility and distraction. Though retaining an impression of the scene in which she had lately played so chief a part, it was faint, vague, and broken by other recollections of other scenes; and though some of her accents betrayed a childish joy at feeling herself in motion through the open air, she was apparently incapable of forming any but the most imperfect and bewildered conception of where she was, whither going, and for what purpose. Occasionally, she murmured words that seemed those of grief and entreaty; and, at such times, her father's name was on her lips, as if she implored those riding at her side to carry her to him. By and by, however, her words became fainter and fewer; then she uttered sobs, and those only at intervals; and at last, these ceasing also, she sank again into unconsciousness, and was maintained on her seat only with the greatest difficulty.