“I must leave you, sir,” said Lady Eleanor, rising; “and although I have heard much to agitate and afflict me, it is some comfort to my heart to think that I have poured some balm into yours; you have my forgiveness for everything.”
“Wait a second, my Lady, wait one second!” gasped he, as with outstretched hands he tried to detain her. “I 'll have strength for it in a minute—I want—I want to ask you once more what you refused me once—and it is n't—it is n't that times are changed, and that you are in poverty now, makes me hope for better luck. It is because this is the request of one on his death-bed,—one that cannot turn his thoughts away from this world, till he has his mind at ease. There, my Lady, take that pocket-book and that deed, throw them into the fire there. They 're the only proofs against the Captain,—no eye but yours must ever see them. If I could see my own beautiful Miss Helen once more in the old house of her fathers—”
“I will not hear of this, sir,” interposed Lady Eleanor, hastily. “No time or circumstances can make any change in the feelings with which I have already replied to this proposal.”
“Heffernan tells me, my Lady, that the baronetcy is certain—don't go—don't go! It's the voice of one you 'll never hear again calls on you. 'Tis eighty-six years have crept to your feet, to die!”
A faint shriek burst from Lady Eleanor; she tottered, reeled, and fell fainting to the ground.
Terrified by the sudden shock, the old man rung his bell with violence, and screamed for help, in accents where there was no counterfeited anxiety; and in another moment his servant rushed iu, followed by Nalty, and in a few seconds later by O'Reilly himself, who, hearing the cries, believed that the effort to feign a death-bed bad turned into a dreadful reality.
“There—there—she is ill—she is dying! It was too much—the shock did it!” cried the old man, now horror-struck at the ruin he had caused.
“She is better,—her pulse is coming back,” whispered O'Reilly; “a little water to her lips,-that will do.”