'Mac Donalbain!' murmured the poor wife, sinking lifeless to the earth.
CHAPTER LIII.
Christine lay at the parsonage in that last hard struggle which releases the soul from its earthly imprisonment. At her bed-side sat Arwed, with humid eyes, his hands in the cold grasp of hers. Near her pillow stood Swedenborg, with his piercing prophet-glance fixed immovably upon the sufferer.
'The symptoms of death are already observable,' whispered he to the weeping curate. 'Her end is near.'
'She has suffered so much,' said Arwed, 'that if her heart were iron it must break under these hard and repeated blows.'
At this moment Christine suddenly rose in her bed, turned her beauteous eyes with heavenly tenderness upon Arwed, and eagerly pressed his hand to her bosom.
'At the brink of the grave,' said she, 'all false appearances must vanish. So near the source of eternal truth, I may now speak the truth to you. I have loved you, Arwed, loved you with all the powers of my passionate soul, from the moment when you stood before me in the knight's hall in the full perfection of youth and manliness. But this love was my misery, for I was already secretly married. The caprices with which I often tormented you, alas, they came from a bleeding heart! At Ravensten did Mac Donalbain's infamous profession first become fully clear to me, and I made every possible effort to withdraw him from it. But the chains of vice hold strong! Only by slow and gentle degrees could my husband disengage himself from his associates; and, before he had time to accomplish the work, his punishment overtook him. What I have done for him was but the performance of a wife's duty. His self-murder is my divorce for this world and the next, and now my only consolation is, that I shall be able to extend to you a FREE hand when we hereafter meet in eternal light.'
As she proceeded, her voice had increased in clearness and fulness of tone, her eye became bright and flashing, and purple roses burned upon her wasted cheeks.
'You have spoken too fast and too earnestly, countess,' said the curate. 'In your present situation this excitement may cause your death.'
'I have it already in my heart, reverend sir,' said the invalid in a low voice; 'and I know but too well that it is too late to preserve life. Yet I thank you for this care, as well as for the religious consolation you have afforded me in this last heavy trial.'