For a moment the young lady recoiled from the appearance of that large apartment, filled with beds in which there lay pillowed so many ghastly faces; but this emotion was as evanescent as the most rapid flash of lightning.
And now, firm in her purpose to console and solace him whom she had taught herself to love, she followed the nurse towards the bed where the patient lay,—looking neither to the right nor to the left as she proceeded thither.
Greenwood's countenance was very pale; but the instant the lovely features of his wife burst upon his view, his eyes were lighted up with an expression of joy such as she had never seen them wear before, and the glow of which appeared to penetrate with a sensation of ineffable bliss into the very profundities of her soul.
"Ellen, this is very kind of you," said Greenwood, tears starting on his long silken lashes, as he pressed her hand warmly in his own.
"Do not use the word kind, my dearest husband," whispered Ellen: "in coming hither I not only perform a duty—but should also fulfil it cheerfully, were it not for the sad occurrence which caused the visit."
"Be not alarmed, Ellen," murmured Greenwood: "there is no danger—a temporary inconvenience only! And yet," he added, after a brief pause, "to me it is particularly galling just at the very time when I was struggling so hard—so very hard—to build up my fallen fortunes, and prepare——"
"Oh! do not grieve on that head!" whispered Ellen: "abandon, I implore you, those ambitious dreams—those lofty aspirations which have only led you astray! Do you suppose that, were you to acquire an amount of wealth far greater than that which blesses him, he would welcome you with one single smile the more joyous—with one single emotion the more blissful? Oh! no—far from it! And believe me when I assert my conviction that it would be his pride to place you with his own hand, and by means of his own resources, in a position to enable you to retrieve the past——"
"Ellen, speak not thus!" said Greenwood, impatiently.
"Well, my dearest husband, I will not urge the topic," answered the beautiful young woman, smiling with a plaintive and melancholy sweetness as she leant over his couch. "But you will permit me to implore that when you are enabled to leave this place, you will suffer yourself to be conveyed to a dwelling which I—your own wife—will provide for you, and where I shall be enabled to visit you every day—as often, indeed, as will give you pleasure? And then—oh! then we shall be happy together—and you can prepare your mind to encounter that day which, I fear, you now look upon to be one of trial, but which I must tutor you to anticipate as one of joy and pleasure as yet unknown."
Greenwood made no answer; but he meditated profoundly upon those loving words and touching assurances that his beauteous wife breathed in his ear.