When again, however, he beheld Cecilia,—senseless, speechless, motionless, her features void of all expression, her cheeks without colour, her eyes without meaning,—he shrunk from the sight, he leant upon Dr Lyster, and almost groaned aloud.
The doctor would have conducted him out of the apartment; but, recovering from this first agony, he turned again to view her, and casting up his eyes, fervently ejaculated, “Oh merciful powers! Take, or destroy her! let her not linger thus, rather let me lose her for ever!—O far rather would I see her dead, glad in this dreadful condition!”
Then, advancing to the bed side, and yet more earnestly looking at her, “I pray not now,” he cried, “for thy life! inhumanly as I have treated thee, I am not yet so hardened as to wish thy misery lengthened no; quick be thy restoration, or short as pure thy passage to eternity!—Oh my Cecilia! lovely, however altered! sweet even in the arms of death and insanity! and dearer to my tortured heart in this calamitous state, than in all thy pride of health and beauty!”—
He stopt, and turned from her, yet could not tear himself away; he came back, he again looked at her, he hung over her in anguish unutterable; he kissed each burning hand, he folded to his bosom her feeble form, and, recovering his speech, though almost bursting with sorrow, faintly articulated, “Is all over? no ray of reason left? no knowledge of thy wretched Delvile?—no, none! the hand of death is on her, and she is utterly gone!—sweet suffering excellence! loved, lost, expiring Cecilia!—but I will not repine! peace and kindred angels are watching to receive thee, and if thou art parted from thyself, it were impious to lament thou shouldst be parted from me.—Yet in thy tomb will be deposited all that to me could render existence supportable, every frail chance of happiness, every sustaining hope, and all alleviation of sorrow!”—
Dr Lyster now again approaching, thought he perceived some change in his patient, and peremptorily forced him away from her: then returning himself, he found that her eyes were shut, and she was dropt asleep.
This was an omen the most favourable he could hope. He now seated himself by the bedside, and determined not to quit her till the expected crisis was past. He gave the strictest orders for the whole house to be kept quiet, and suffered no one in the room either to speak or move.
Her sleep was long and heavy; yet, when she awoke, her sensibility was evidently returned. She started, suddenly raised her head from the pillow, looked round her, and called out, “where am I now?”
“Thank Heaven!” cried Henrietta, and was rushing forward, when Dr Lyster, by a stern and angry look, compelled her again to take her seat.
He then spoke to her himself, enquired how she did, and found her quite rational.
Henrietta, who now doubted not her perfect recovery, wept as violently for joy as she had before wept for grief; and Mary, in the same belief, ran instantly to Delvile, eager to carry to him the first tidings that her mistress had recovered her reason.