'Pardon me, Sir,' said she, 'if I entreat you to go down stairs and await the arrival of the advice I have sent for. Should my poor friend recover, your presence may renew and encrease the alarm of her spirits, and embarrass her returning recollection; and should she not recover, you had better hear such mournful tidings in any place rather than this.'
'Oh! if I do hear them,' answered he, wildly, 'it matters little where. But I will withdraw, Madam, since you seem to desire it.'
He had hardly seen Emmeline before. He now turned his eyes mournfully upon her—'It is, I presume, Miss Mowbray,' said he, 'who thus, with an angel's tenderness in an angel's form, would spare the sorrows of a stranger?'
Emmeline, unable to speak, led the way down to the parlour, and Godolphin silently followed her.
'Go back,' said he, tremulously, as soon as they reached the room—'go back to my sister; your tender assiduity may do more for her than the people about her. Your voice, your looks, will soothe and tranquillize her, should she awaken from her long insensibility. Ah! tell her, her brother came only to rescue her from the misery of her unworthy lot—Tell her his affection, his brotherly affection, hopes to give her consolation; and restore her—if it may yet be—to her repose. But go, dearest Miss Mowbray go!—somebody comes in—perhaps the physician.'
Emmeline now opening the parlour door, found it to be indeed the physician she expected; and with a fearful heart she followed him, informing him, as they went up stairs, that the sudden appearance of Mrs. St. Laure's brother, whom she had not seen for two or three years, had thrown her into a fainting fit, from which not all their endeavours had recovered her.
He remonstrated vehemently against the extreme indiscretion of such an interview. Emmeline, who knew not by what strange chain of circumstances it had been brought about, had nothing to reply.
So feeble were the appearances of remaining life, that the physician could pronounce nothing certainly in regard to his patient. He gave, however, directions to her attendants; but after every application had been used, all that could be said was, that she was not actually dead. As soon as the physician had written his prescription and retired, Emmeline recollected the painful state of suspense in which she had left Mr. Godolphin, and trying to recover courage to go thro' the painful scene before her, she went down to him.
As she opened the door, he met her.
'I have seen the doctor,' said he, in a broken and hurried voice—'and from his account I am convinced Adelina is dying.'