Scene VII.
Waitwell, Sara, Betty, Norton.
SARA.
I suppose you are anxious for my answer, dear Waitwell. It is ready except a few lines. But why so alarmed? They must have told you that I am ill.
WAITWELL.
And more still.
SARA.
Dangerously ill? I conclude so from Mellefont's passionate anxiety more than from my own feelings. Suppose, Waitwell, you should have to go with an unfinished letter from your unhappy Sara to her still more unhappy father! Let us hope for the best! Will you wait until to-morrow? Perhaps I shall find a few good moments to finish off the letter to your satisfaction. At present, I cannot do so. This hand hangs as if dead by my benumbed side. If the whole body dies away as easily as these limbs----you are an old man, Waitwell, and cannot be far from the last scene. Believe me, if that which I feel is the approach of death, then the approach of death is not so bitter. Ah! Do not mind this sigh! Wholly without unpleasant sensation it cannot be. Man could not be void of feeling; he must not be impatient. But, Betty, why are you so inconsolable?
BETTY.
Permit me, Miss, permit me to leave you.
SARA.
Go; I well know it is not every one who can bear to be with the dying. Waitwell shall remain with me! And you, Norton, will do me a favour, if you go and look for your master. I long for his presence.
BETTY (going).
Alas, Norton, I took the medicine from Marwood's hands!