“Let Saul lie here too, papa,” said Bride suddenly. “Whether living or dead, let us shelter him. If he has greatly sinned, he has suffered terribly. We do not carry enmity beyond the grave, nor punishment after a man has been so struck down.”
“I have sent for his grandfather. I will settle with him about that unhappy young man. Bride, my dear, I think you had better go. This will be no sight for you.”
But Bride slipped her hand within her father’s arm, and looked beseechingly into his face.
“Do not send me away till I have seen him. You know that I love Eustace, papa, and he loves me. I believe that this is God’s way of giving him back to me. I can bear it whichever way it turns.”
The Duke said no more. He recognised in Bride that inherent strength of character, born of a perfect faith, which had characterised her mother. He let her stay beside him as the heavy steps drew nearer and nearer, and the hand upon his arm did not quiver as the bearers appeared with their strange load at the great door.
In they came, panting with the effort, for the ascent to the castle was steep, and the load a heavy one. And when once within the shelter of the hall, they were forced, without waiting for leave, to lay it down and gasp for breath.
Bride stepped forward and looked. There was nothing ghastly in the sight to her—only something unspeakably solemn and mysterious.
The faces of both men were white and rigid, but in nowise distorted. There was a calm nobility of aspect about Eustace, which suggested the hope that the soul was at peace in the midst of the terrors of that fearful night. Saul’s brow was knitted, and his lips were set in lines of vehement resolution, as though not even death could obliterate from his face the intensity of his great resolve.
As Bride looked, she said within herself, “He died trying to save Eustace;” and though she could not tell how such a thing could be, she felt the sense of certainty rise up glad and strong within her. If his life had been a wild and wicked one, might not his death have witnessed to the dawn of the eternal love in his darkened heart? Might not this sudden act of self-sacrifice have been the Divine spark kindling in his soul, and lighting his way to God?
And then from two different doors entered on the one hand Abner, and the other the doctor, who had been summoned in hot haste by a mounted messenger some time before; and Bride, with one last lingering look upon her lover’s face, silently withdrew, to return to her vigil and her prayers, till she could learn what was the verdict about these two men so strangely locked together.