HOW MONA COMFORTS PAUL RODNEY—HOW NIGHT AND DEATH DESCEND TOGETHER—AND HOW PAUL RODNEY DISPOSES OF HIS PROPERTY.
On a low bed, with his eyes fastened eagerly upon the door, lies Paul Rodney, the dews of death already on his face.
There is no disfigurement about him to be seen, no stain of blood, no ugly mark; yet he is touched by the pale hand of the destroyer, and is sinking, dying, withering beneath it. He has aged at least ten years within the last fatal hour, while in his eyes lies an expression so full of hungry expectancy and keen longing as amounts almost to anguish.
As Mona advances to his side, through the gathering gloom of fast approaching night, pale almost as he is, and trembling in every limb, this miserable anxiety dies out of his face, leaving behind it a rest and peace unutterable.
To her it is an awful moment. Never before has she stood face to face with dissolution, to wait for the snapping of the chain,—the breaking of the bowl. "Neither the sun nor death," says La Rochefoucauld, "can be looked at steadily;" and now "Death's thousand doors stand open" to receive this man that but an hour agone was full of life as she is now. His pulses throbbed, his blood coursed lightly through his veins, the grave seemed a far-off destination; yet here he lies, smitten to the earth, beaten down and trodden under, with nothing further to anticipate but the last change of all.
"O Death! thou strange, mysterious power, seen every day yet never understood but by the incommunicative dead, what art thou?"
"You have come," he says, with a quick sigh that be speaks relief. "I knew you would. I felt it; yet I feared. Oh, what comfort to see you again!"
Mona tries to say something,—anything that will be kind and sympathetic,—but words fail her. Her lips part, but no sound escapes them. The terrible reality of the moment terrifies and overcomes her.
"Do not try to make me any commonplace speeches," says Rodney, marking her hesitation. He speaks hastily, yet with evident difficulty. "I am dying. Nothing, can alter that. But death has brought you to my side again, so I cannot repine."
"But to find you like this"—begins Mona. And then overcome by grief and agitation, she covers her face with her hands, and bursts into tears.