A strange expression flitted across her face. For one instant it seemed to him that this was not Mercedes, but Lilia. Then came the memory of that awful death-bed, when Lilia defied the will of her Creator, and would have forced him, her husband, to die with her, and he contrasted that hour of rebellion with this hour of humble renunciation.
“This is her soul,” he thought, in mingled awe and gratitude. “Roderick would have caused our misery; instead, he has saved us from an evil life together for here, in this painful world, to be united in eternity.”
This was his actual death, he felt, as he silently gazed into her eyes, this parting. Physical death, after this, would be nothing—would, indeed, be welcome.
For a moment he thought to take her, just this once, into his arms: to let her heart beat against his breast, to feel her lips upon his mouth; but before the thought was really born in his mind he killed it and flung it from him.
“Risk eternity for a moment?” he said to himself. “No!”
He dropped her hands and smiled at her, the smile she might have seen with the eyes of her soul upon the face of her angel guardian.
“There is no more for us to say now,” he said, “but to pray for each other. By-and-by we shall have time to see what this means—this you and I being but one soul.”
She rose and kept her eyes steadily fixed upon him. Then she slowly walked to the door. How slowly she passed from the room he never knew. Their eyes dwelt upon each other, and till she was gone he felt that never, even in infinite glory, could they be more really wedded than now.
The door was half open. The room was empty, save for himself and the shadows. The hall-door was gently shut. He heard the sound of carriage-wheels. All was over!
He sat down stupefied. This dead future which loomed blankly before him was stupefying—a dense blackness, a hopeless nothingness.