Charles put his hand to his heart, and paused for a moment, for he felt as if he should have fallen.
"Where is she?" he demanded at length, "where is she? I may go up, I'm sure."
The servant ran up stairs before him, but he overtook her as she reached the top, and himself knocked at the door which she was opening.
"May I come in?" he said; "may I come in? It is Charles."
"Oh, yes, come in, come in, dearest, Charles," said the voice of Lucy, herself. "Come in," repeated the voice of Mrs. Effingham, and Charles was in the room in a moment. Lucy was sitting up in bed, with her mother beside her. She was pale, and had evidently been very ill; but there was life, and hope, and joy in her eyes, and Charles, springing forward, threw his arms around her, and pressed her to his bosom.
"I shall soon be well now, Charles," said Lucy, as soon as she could dry her tears. "Your step upon the stairs, Charles, was better than the finest drug that ever was imported from foreign lands. I shall soon be well now!"
She kept her word, and was soon well. The cloud that had hung over the early day of Charles Tyrrell was wafted away. In his youth he had drank the bitter cup to the dregs, and the rest of his life passed in sunshine and sweetness. Lucy made him happy, and having learned so many severe lessons by experience, Charles acquired that command over himself, and taught it to his children, which had been possessed by none of his family before him.
He entertained, however, a sort of antipathy toward the spot where so much misery had befallen him, and he proposed to Lucy, and she willingly agreed, that he, being the last in the entail, should sell the property of Harbury Park, and purchase another in the neighbourhood of the spot where they were reunited after so painful a separation.
In that park, however, and in the scenes around it, I have spent many a happy day in sunshiny hours of my youth, and there collected, many years ago, the details of that history which I have now given. The Tyrrell family are still recollected by a multitude of persons living around, and it seems to be a general opinion, that the sort of spell which conducted so many of them to a bloody grave, had been broken by the trial and acquittal of Sir Charles Tyrrell.
Young Morrison, alas! no longer young, is still alive, and affords daily a good example of what an honest, upright, well-intentioned lawyer can do for the defence, protection, and assistance of his neighbours. Poor Captain Longly I remember well, with his hair as white as snow, but nourishing to the last, with scrupulous care, the long pig-tail, in which consisted the glory of his person. Hailes, his wife, and children, removed to Devonshire, and he became the commander of Sir Charles Tyrrell's yacht.