And with these words he turned away without looking at her, and quitted the room.
The silence of death seemed already to have settled on the chamber; which was broken, at length, by the deep sobbings of the unfortunate Mrs. Cartwright.
"Poor soul!" said Henrietta, turning towards her. "She is not wholly bad, but more unfit to judge and act than a baby:—for they can do nothing, and she, alas! can do much dreadful mischief. With my dying breath, unhappy victim of a most finished hypocrite, I do conjure you not to wrong your children, to enrich him. Poor soul!—He loves her not; no not even so much as, silly as she is, she well deserves from him. He will have a child born to him here, and another at Gloucester, much at the same time. Do not ruin your poor helpless children for him!"
Mrs. Cartwright sat with her eyes immoveably fixed on those of Henrietta, even after she had ceased to speak: she sighed deeply, but uttered no syllable in reply.
"Take her away, Rosalind. I have no more to say to her. And poor Fanny too. Heaven bless you, Fanny!—you may go now, my dear. All go, but Rosalind."
Her commands were instantly obeyed, and once more the two strangely matched friends were left alone together.
"It is too late now, my Rosalind! My strength is failing fast. I can hardly see your sweet kind eyes, dear Rosalind!—but I can hear. Read to me, dearest;—quick, open the Bible that you left for me:—open it where the man says to Paul, 'Almost thou persuadest me to be a Christian.'"
Rosalind opened the precious volume, and read to her, slowly and distinctly, that exquisite passage of heaven-taught eloquence, which produced in reply the words she had quoted.
Henrietta's eyes were closed; but now and then a gentle pressure of the hand she held in hers persuaded Rosalind that she heard and understood each powerful word of that majestic pleading.
When she had reached, and read the words Henrietta had quoted, she paused, and in a moment afterwards the now expiring girl uttered in broken accents, "Yes,—stop there. It has reached my soul—from your lips only, Rosalind!"