"Good Heaven! and I have something of the last importance to communicate to him!" exclaimed Mr. Haveloc. "Ah, youngster! clever of you to leave it to the last," said Mr. Casement.
"Good Heaven! when I was away—when I did not know it before. It concerns his niece—"
"Oh! some rigmarole about Miss Peggy you may tell it to me. I am appointed one of her guardians."
Mr. Haveloc turned abruptly away, and stood by the bed-side, watching Mr. Grey with eager interest. At length, he thought it just possible that Margaret might have arranged everything with her uncle before writing to him.
"Did your uncle know of the resolution you announced to me in your letter of yesterday?" he asked coldly.
"Hush! no. Don't speak to him;" said Margaret shrinking back with an appearance of terror.
He sighed, and moved to a little distance from her chair. Mr. Casement came close to the bed, and he saw that all would soon be over. Margaret sat paralysed with fear, watching the peculiar and earnest expression of the countenance which marks that when the senses are sealed, the soul is still awake, and waiting to be released. And it is at once awful and sublime when no pause or cessation of consciousness takes place, and the spirit steps from one existence to the other without an interval of slumber.
"Come little woman—come away;" said Mr. Casement taking her hand and raising her from her chair, "you can do nothing more. He will never see, or know any one again."
She had no power to resist; she would have opposed nothing. She suffered him to lead her in silence from the room; and so was spared the last appalling moment when the spirit vanishes from its human abode.