Poor fellow! he died hard; and I wished that those comfortable English people could have been dragged from their warm beds and brought into the cold dreary cell where their victim lay, fighting for breath, suffering cruelly both in mind and body. Valerian, listening in sad suspense, heard one more faint word rapped by the dying man.
“Farewell!”
“God be with you!” he replied, unable to check the tears which rained down as he thought of the life so sadly ended, and of his own bereavement.
He heard no more. Sigismund’s strength failed him, and I, to whom the darkness made no difference, watched him through the last dread struggle; there was no one to raise him, or hold him, no one to comfort him. Alone in the cold and darkness of that first morning of the year 1887, he died.
Valerian did not hear through the wall his last faint gasping cry, but I heard it, and its exceeding bitterness would have made mortals weep.
“Gertrude!” he sobbed. “Gertrude!”
And with that his head sank on his breast, and the life, which but for me might have been so happy and prosperous, was ended.
* * * * *
Prompted by curiosity, I instantly returned to Muddleton and sought out Gertrude Morley. I stole into her room. She lay asleep, but her dreams were troubled, and her face, once so fresh and bright, was worn with pain and anxiety.
Scarcely had I entered the room when, to my amazement, I saw the spirit of Sigismund Zaluski.