Soon after, he asked her to take a walk with him; adding, in a whisper, "We will go find her grave;" and taking her under his arm, he led her to the garden, smiling on her from time to time, as if it gave him pleasure to see her; and sometimes laughing, as if at some secret satisfaction which he would not communicate. When they had made one turn round the garden, he suddenly stopped, and began singing—"Tears such as tender fathers shed," that affecting song of Handel's, which he used to delight to hear Agnes sing: "I can't go on," he observed, looking at Agnes; "can you?" as if there were in his mind some association between her and that song; and Agnes, with a bursting heart, took up the air where he left off.
Fitzhenry listened with restless agitation; and when she had finished, he desired her to sing it again. "But say the words first," he added: and Agnes repeated——
| "Tears such as tender fathers shed Warm from my aged eyes descend, For joy, to think, when I am dead, My son will have mankind his friend." |
"No, no," cried Fitzhenry with quickness, "'for joy to think, when I am dead, Agnes will have mankind her friend.' I used to sing it so; and so did she when I bade her. Oh! she sung it so well!—But she can sing it no more now, for she is dead; and we will go look for her grave."
Then he walked hastily round the garden, while Agnes, whom the words of this song, by recalling painful recollections, had almost deprived of reason, sat down on a bench, nearly insensible, till he again came to her, and, taking her hand, said in a hurried manner, "You will not leave me, will you?" On her answering No, in a very earnest and passionate manner, he looked delighted; and saying "Poor thing!" again gazed on her intently; and again Agnes's hopes that he would in time know her returned.——"Very pale, very pale!" cried Fitzhenry the next moment, stroking her cheek; "and she had such a bloom!—Sing again: for the love of God, sing again:"—and in a hoarse, broken voice Agnes complied. "She sung better than you," rejoined he when she had done:—"so sweet, so clear it was!—But she is gone!" So saying, he relapsed into total indifference to Agnes, and every thing around him—and again her new-raised hopes vanished.
The keeper now told her it was time for her to depart; and she mournfully arose: but, first seizing her father's hand, she leaned for a moment her head on his arm; then, bidding God bless him, walked to the door with the keeper. But on seeing her about to leave him, Fitzhenry ran after her, as fast as his heavy irons would let him, wildly exclaiming, "You shall not go—you shall not go."
Agnes, overjoyed at this evident proof of the pleasure her presence gave him, looked at the keeper for permission to stay; but as he told her it would be against the rules, she thought it more prudent to submit; and before Fitzhenry could catch hold of her in order to detain her by force, she ran through the house, and the grated door was closed on her.
"And this," said Agnes to herself, turning round to survey the melancholy mansion which she had left, while mingled sounds of groans, shrieks, shouts, laughter, and the clanking of irons, burst upon her ears, "this is the abode of my father! and provided for him by me!—This is the recompense bestowed on him by the daughter whom he loved and trusted, in return for years of unparalleled fondness and indulgence!"
The idea was too horrible; and Agnes, calling up all the energy of her mind, remembered the uselessness of regret for the past, but thought with pleasure on the advantages of amendment for the present and the future: and by the time she reached Fanny's door, her mind had recovered its sad composure.
Her countenance, at her return, was very different to what it had been at her departure. Hope animated her sunk eye, and she seemed full of joyful though distant expectations: nay, so much was she absorbed in pleasing anticipations, that she feebly returned the caresses of her child, who climbed up her knees to express his joy at seeing her; and even while she kissed his ruddy cheek, her eye looked beyond it with the open gaze of absence.