“And it is absolutely the very last remnant of his property?”
“The last.”
“I am then to understand, that when this is spent there is nothing between him and beggary?”
“Nothing,” said the woman, with a half sigh.
The man laughed again, and then rejoined in an altered tone, “Then, then will this parching thirst be quenched at last. I tell you, woman, that it is many months since I have known a day—night—hour, in which my life has been as the life of other men. My whole soul has been melted down into one burning, burning thought. Feel this hand—ay, you may well start—but what is the fever of the frame to that within?”
Here the voice sunk so low as to be inaudible. The woman seemed as if endeavouring to sooth him; at length she said—“But poor Tyrrell—you will not, surely, suffer him to die of actual starvation?”
The man paused for a few moments, and then replied—“Night and day, I pray to God, upon my bended knees, only one unvarying, unceasing prayer, and that is—‘When the last agonies shall be upon that man—when, sick with weariness, pain, disease, hunger, he lies down to die—when the death-gurgle is in the throat, and the eye swims beneath the last dull film—when remembrance peoples the chamber with Hell, and his cowardice would falter forth its dastard recantation to Heaven—then—may I be there?”
There was a long pause, only broken by the woman’s sobs, which she appeared endeavouring to stifle. At last the man rose, and in a tone so soft that it seemed literally like music, addressed her in the most endearing terms. She soon yielded to their persuasion, and replied to them with interest. “Spite of the stings of my remorse,” she said, “as long as I lose not you, I will lose life, honour, hope, even soul itself!”
They both quitted the spot as she said this.
O, that woman’s love! how strong is it in its weakness! how beautiful in its guilt!