It is scarcely necessary to state that Mr. Graham exerted all his skill on behalf of the dying man.
Adeline affected the deepest sorrow at the condition in which she found her husband;—but the only grief which she really experienced was caused by the prospect of being shortly compelled to resign all control over the broad lands of Ravensworth, in case her as yet unborn child should prove a daughter.
In the course of the day two eminent physicians arrived from London; but the condition of Lord Ravensworth was hopeless: nothing could arouse him from the torpor in which he was plunged; and in the evening he breathed his last.
Thus was it that this nobleman had at length accomplished—involuntarily accomplished—his self-destruction by the use of the oriental tobacco sent to him by his brother Gilbert Vernon!
On the first day of February there had been a marriage at Ravensworth Hall: on the sixteenth there was a funeral.
How closely does mourning follow upon the heels of rejoicing, in this world!
On the same night when Lord Ravensworth breathed his last, the following scene occurred in London.
It was about eleven o'clock when the Resurrection Man and Mr. Banks entered the cell in which the old woman was confined.
"Is your labour done?" demanded Tidkins, in a surly tone, as if he expected a farther delay in the business.