About daybreak, being alone with her father, she shed a few tears at his lonely condition. “I fear you will miss me,” said she. “Take my advice, dear; be reconciled with Alfred at once, and let Julia be your daughter, since I am leaving you. She is all humility and heart. Dying, I prize her and her affection more highly; I seem to see characters clearer, all things clearer, than I did before my summons came.”
The miserable father tried to be playful and scold her: “You must not talk nor think of death,” he said. “Your bridal-day is to come first; I know all; Edward Dodd has told me he loves you. He is a fine noble fellow; you shall marry him: I wish it. Now, for his sake, summon all your resolution, and make up your mind to live. Why, at your age, it needs but to say, 'I will live, I will, I will;' and when all the prospect is so smiling, when love awaits you at the altar, and on every side! If you could leave your poor doting father, do not leave your lover: and here he is with his mother crying for you. Let me comfort him; let me tell him you will live for his sake and mine.”
Even this could not disturb the dying Christian. “Dear Edward,” she said; “it is sweet to know he loves me. Ah, well, he is young; he must live without me till I become but a tender memory of his youth. And oh, I pray for him that he may cherish the words I have spoken to him for his soul's good far longer than he can remember these features that are hastening to decay.”
At ten in the morning Mr. Hardie's messenger returned without Alfred, and with a note from Dr. Wycherley to this effect, that, the order for Alfred's admission into his asylum being signed by Mr. Thomas Hardie, he could not send him out even for a day except on Thomas Hardie's authority; it would be a violation of the law. Under the circumstances, however, he thought he might venture to receive that order by telegraph. If, then, Mr. Hardie would telegraph Thomas Hardie in Yorkshire to telegraph him (Wycherley), Alfred should be sent with two keepers wherever Mr. T. Hardie should so direct.
Now Mr. Hardie had already repented of sending for Alfred at all. So, instead of telegraphing Yorkshire, he remained passive, and said sullenly to Mrs. Dodd, “Alfred can't come, it seems.”
Thus Routine kept the brother from his dying sister.
They told Jane, with aching hearts, there was reason to fear Alfred could not arrive that day.
She only gave a meaning look at Julia, about the paper; and then she said with a little sigh, “God's will be done.”
This was the last disappointment Heaven allowed Earth to inflict on her; and the shield of Faith turned its edge.
One hour of pain, another of delirium, and now the clouds that darken this mortal life seemed to part and pass, and Heaven to open full upon her. She spoke of her coming change no longer with resignation; it was with rapture. “Oh!” she cried, “to think that from this very day I shall never sin again, shall never again offend Him by unholy temper, by un-Christ-like behaviour!”