This note, short as it was, she had the utmost difficulty to make legible. A servant was sent off with it, who was ordered to answer no questions; and in another short and incoherent note she told to Lord Westhaven the melancholy truth, and sent it by express into Kent.
Having thus obeyed Godolphin as well as she could; she returned to Lady Westhaven, who could not be prevailed upon to go to bed, but insisted on being allowed to see her brother. Emmeline, dreadfully terrified by her obstinacy, now sent for the two physicians who usually attended the family. One of them had been taken by Godolphin to Delamere; but the other instantly attended the summons. Every argument he could use failing entirely of effect, he was obliged to administer to her a remedy, which soon acting on her fatigued and exhausted spirits, threw her for a short time into insensibility. While poor Emmeline, who expected soon the arrival of the unhappy father, and who waited with torturing anxiety for news from Godolphin, could not even sit down; but wandered about the house, and walked from room to room, as if change of place could shorten or lessen her dreadful suspence.
No news, however, came from Godolphin. But a little before eight o'clock, the Marquis's chaise stopped at the door.
He got out; asked faulteringly of the servants for his son. Their looks imported sad tidings; but they were ordered to profess ignorance, and it was the excruciating task allotted to Emmeline to inform this wretched parent that his only son, the pride and support of his life, had fallen; and what made it still more horrid, by the hand of his daughter's paramour. Lord Montreville entered the drawing room; and the wild and pallid looks of his niece struck him with such horror, that he could only pronounce with trembling lips the name of Delamere: and then throwing himself into a chair, seemed to expect she should tell him what he was unable to ask.
She approached him; but words failed her.
'Delamere!—my son!' cried he, in a voice hollow and tremulous.
'He is not dead, my Lord.'
'Not dead! wherefore is it then that you look thus? Oh! what is it I am to know?'
Emmeline then briefly related his situation, as she had heard it from Godolphin. She had only said, that tho' desperately wounded he yet lived, when Lord Montreville, gazing on her with eyes that bespoke the agony of his soul, and seizing her violently by the hand, said—'Come, then, with me! come to him with me, now, this instant!'
He then burst out of the room, still taking her with him. She knew not why he wished her to follow; but went, unequal to resistance or enquiry.