For weeks at a time she appeared to be as of old, save for some increase of weakness and tremulousness.

But below the surface the brain was out of poise, and under the least pressure of excitement she betrayed the change in a manner so appalling--by the loud negation of those beliefs which in saner moments were most dear to her, and especially by a denial of the Providence and goodness of God--that even her child, even the being who knew her and loved her best, shuddered lest Satan, visible and triumphant, should rise to confront her.
Fortunately the fits of this mysterious malady were short as they were appalling, and to the minds of that day, suspicious.

And in the beginning Anne had the support of an old physician, well-nigh their only intimate.

True, even he was scared by a form of disease, new and beyond his science; but he prescribed a sedative and he kept counsel.

He went further: for sufficiently enlightened himself to believe in the innocence of these attacks, he none the less explained to the daughter the peril to which her mother's aberrations must expose her were they known to the vulgar; and he bade her hide them with all the care imaginable.
Anne, on this would fain have adopted the safest course and kept the house empty; to the end that to the horror of her mother's fits of delirium might not be added the chance of eavesdropping.