Cruel as the grave

by Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth

Joe, who had fallen asleep over the fire, now slowly woke up and lifted himself from the floor.

The Captain shook hands with his friends, and followed by Joe, left the Chapel.

Sybil then went and spread out the mattress, and put the pillows and covering upon it, and persuaded Lyon to lie down and try to sleep, as he had not slept for two nights past. She said that she herself could not sleep, but that she would sit close by him, so as to be ready to arouse him, on the slightest indication of danger.

Very reluctantly he yielded to her pleadings, and stretched himself upon the mattress. She went and gathered the smouldering coals and brands together, so that the fire might not go entirely out, and then she returned and sat down beside her husband.

He took her hand in his, and clasping it protectingly, he closed his eyes and fell asleep.

She sat watching the little fire, and brooding almost to insanity over the strange revolution that a few hours had made in her life, driving her so suddenly from her own hereditary manor-house, her home of wealth and honor and safety, out into the perilous wilderness, a fugitive from the law.

Yet not once did Sybil’s imagination take in the extreme horror of her position. She thought that she had been brought away by her husband to be saved from the affront of an arrest, and the humiliation of a few days imprisonment. That anything worse than this could happen to her, she never even dreamed. But even this to the pure, proud Sybil would have been almost insupportable mortification and misery. To escape all this she was almost willing to incur the charge of having fled from justice, and to endure the hardships of a fugitive’s life.

And oh! through all there was one consolation so great, that it was enough to compensate for all the wretchedness of her position. She was assured of her husband’s love, beyond all possibility of future doubt. He was by her side, never to leave her more!

This was enough! She closed her hand around the beloved hand that held hers, and felt a strange peace and joy, even in the midst of her exile and danger.

Perhaps in this stillness she slumbered a while, for when she lifted her head, the chapel, that had been dark before, but for the gleaming of the little fire, was now dimly filled with the gray light of dawn.