“I am so,” calmly replied Rainscourt, who, stunned by the condition of his daughter, the futility and blindness of his measures, and the unexpected promulgation of his guilt, offered no resistance. “Had you made your communication yesterday, sir, this would not have happened. I surrender myself up to justice. You have no objection to my retiring a few minutes to my bedroom, till the officers come—I have papers to arrange?”
McElvina acceded; and Rainscourt, bowing low for the attention, went into the adjoining room, and closed the door. A few seconds had but elapsed, when the report of a pistol was heard. McElvina rushed in, and found Rainscourt dead upon the floor, the gorgeous tapestry besprinkled with the blood and brains of the murderer and the suicide.
One more scene, and all is over. Draw up the curtain, and behold the chamber in which, but the evening before, two souls, as pure as ever spurned the earth and flew to heaven,—two forms, perfect as ever nature moulded in her happiest mood,—two hearts, that beat responsive without one stain of self,—two hands, that plighted troth, and vowed and meant to love and cherish, with all that this world could offer in possession,—health, wealth, power of intellect and cultivated minds—Joy and Love hand in hand smiling on the present—Hope, with her gilded wand, pointing to futurity,—all vanished! And, in their place standing like funeral mourners, at each corner of the bed, Misery,—Despair,—Agony,—and Death!—Woe, woe, too great for utterance—all is as silent, as horribly silent, as the grave yawning for its victim.
McElvina and Susan are supporting the sufferer in his last agonies; and as he writhes, and his beseeching eyes are turned towards them, supply the water, which but for a moment damps the raging fire within.
The surgeon has retired from his useless and painful task—habituated to death, but not to such a scene as this.
The vicar, anxious to administer religious balm, knows that in excruciating torture his endeavours would be vain, and the tears roll down his cheeks as he turns away from a sight which his kind heart will not allow him to behold.
Emily is on her knees, holding Seymour’s hand, which, even in his agony, he attempts not to remove. Her face is lying down upon it, that she may not behold his sufferings. She speaks not—moves not—weeps not—all is calm—deceitful calm—her heart is broken!
And there he lies—“the young, the beautiful, the brave in one short hour to be:—
“A thing
O’er which the raven flaps her funeral wing.”