"There, on the desk where I was wounded." While Rudolph hastily wrote a few lines, the countess wiped away the icy sweat which stood upon her brow; her features now betrayed violent and concealed suffering.
His note being written, Rudolph arose and said to the lady, "I will send this to my daughter by one of my aids-de-camp. She will be here in half an hour. Shall I bring with me, on my return, the clergyman and witnesses?"
"You can, or, rather, I beg you will do so. Ring—do not leave me alone!"
Rudolph rang the bell, and requested the servant who answered the summons to desire Sir Walter Murphy to come to him.
"This union is sad, Rudolph," said the countess, bitterly; "sad for me. For you it will be happy, for I shall not survive it."
At this moment Murphy entered.
"My friend," said Rudolph, "send this letter immediately by the colonel; he will bring my daughter back with him in the carriage. Beg the clergyman and witnesses to walk into the next room."
"Oh, heaven!" cried Sarah, in a supplicating tone, when the squire had departed, "grant me strength enough to see her—let me not die before she arrives!"
"Oh, why have you not always been as good a mother?"
"Thanks to you, at least, I know repentance—devotion—self-denial. Yes, just now, when my brother said our child lived—let me say our child—I felt that I was stricken unto death. I did not tell him, but I was happy. The birth of our child will be legitimatized and I should die afterward."