"Would that she had died before! Would that she had died ere my trust and love were so cruelly shaken!" he exclaimed wildly, as he raised her lifeless form from the floor, and laid it on the bed.
"Oh, Walter Jerrold! are you mad? To wish she had died without repentance—without proving that her nature, by rising through grace above the guilt of sin, is worthy of your highest esteem and love? Go, sir, unless you wish your servants to become acquainted with the whole affair, and to-morrow hear it recited at the corners of the streets by every newsboy in the city. I shall have to ring for assistance."
"Give me that will," he said, moodily.
"For what?"
"To place it in Mr. Fielding's hands, and tell him the disgraceful story, lest he afterwards think I have been an accessory to Helen's guilt," he replied.
"No, sir. It is entirely my affair, and I wish no interference. I will arrange it all myself, and be more tender of you and yours than you, in your savage mood, could be," replied May, holding the will firmly to her bosom.
When the physician came, he, after a careful examination, pronounced the case to be a violent attack of brain-fever. Helen was at times in a raving delirium; then she would lie for hours without sense or motion. Sometimes she implored in moving terms her husband's forgiveness; then, when the violence of the paroxysm was passing away, she would whisper, "Lead me, Mother! Lead me through this howling wilderness. Oh, save—save me! I am pursued. Hold me, my Mother—my sorrowful Mother!"
May could only follow implicitly the doctor's directions, and weep and pray. Father Fabian came—heard the story of her repentance, and desire to return to God; then returned to wrestle in earnest prayer at the altar that she—the penitent one—might be restored long enough to be purified and consoled by the Sacraments of the Church. For long weary days and nights her life was despaired of. Her husband, the shadow of his former self, never left her bedside. He had loved her well, with all his worldliness and pride. But now the crisis of the disease came on. Her life hung upon the most attenuated thread. The doctor gave them no hope of a favorable change.
It was past midnight. May, with Father Fabian, who had staid, hoping that a short interval of reason would occur before her agony came on—for they thought she was sinking—knelt, praying and imploring the mercy of heaven for her helpless soul. Mr. Jerrold, unmanned, and filled with bitter anguish, had gone out into the balcony, which overhung the garden, where, bowed down, he wept like a child.
A low moan escaped Helen's white lips, a quivering motion convulsed her limbs. Her long golden hair was thrown back in dishevelled curls from her marble face. She gasped for breath.