At length the fatal morning came—the morning on which Rainford was to suffer, and to which date we have now brought up our history. On the preceding Saturday Tamar had written to Esther to say that the hours of her bitterest—most crushing trials were now at hand; and that if she survived the soul-harrowing anguish then in store for her, it would be only with the hope of yet finding herself restored, sooner or later, to the sweet companionship of her sister, and also for the sake of the little boy whom Rainford's kindness had adopted, and who was so completely dependent upon her. "The moment all shall be over on Monday morning," added Tamar in her letter, "my preparations to leave London will commence. It is my intention—my firm intention to proceed to America, and there remain—burying my woes in a strange land, and devoting myself to the care of this boy—until it may please God to move my father's heart to recall me home! Let me receive a letter from thee, then, my beloved sister, on Monday morning—a letter that may console me by the assurances of thy continued love—if consolation there be for me in this life! Let your much-coveted communication reach me, sweetest Esther, at about ten o'clock on Monday. May God bless you, dearest—dearest Esther!"
Accordingly, on Monday morning, at about half-past nine, Esther despatched a letter, by a messenger, to Tamar's lodgings in the City. Need we say that this epistle contained all the tender assurances of love and unvarying affection which the affectionate disposition of the Jewish maiden could suggest, or which were calculated to console where consolation was so difficult? When the messenger, whom she had gone out to hire, had departed with the letter, Esther de Medina felt too restless—too nervous—too unsettled, to return home again immediately. The idea that one whom her sister loved had suffered an ignominious death that morning, and that Tamar was at that very moment crushed down to the earth by the weight of her afflictions,—this idea was more than Esther could contend against. She wandered listlessly about—unmindful whither she was going; and it was in this frame of mind that she suddenly heard her name pronounced. She knew the voice, which somewhat recalled her to herself; for it was the voice of Lord Ellingham, whose absence from home had been made known to her by means of the laconic letter which he had addressed to her father from his dungeon.
The reader knows the rest:—with strange rapidity was she hurried away by the Earl towards Red Lion Street; and in the house to which she was conducted, she found her sister, who had arrived there only a few minutes previously, guided by Jacob Smith.
CHAPTER LVII.
A FATHER.
While the scenes related in the fifty-fifth chapter were taking place at the house in Red Lion Street, Mr. de Medina was pacing in an agitated manner his private apartment at his own residence.
Esther had rightly divined his thoughts and intentions: he had indeed been debating in his own mind, for some time past, whether his duty, as a father and as a man, did not command him to forgive a daughter whom the hand of the Lord had so severely stricken.
The Jew thought of his wife long dead, and murmured to himself—"Were she alive still, she would be kneeling at my feet, imploring me to pardon the erring Tamar! And does she not now look down upon me from those empyrean heights where her sainted spirit is numbered with the blest? Nay, more; do I not see her image now kneeling before me? Oh! can this be imagination? Yes—it is,—it is,—and yet how like the reality!"
Mr. de Medina was so painfully excited that his fancy for a moment conjured up the semblance of his deceased wife, as she had appeared in the pride of her loveliness, long years before.
But when the evanescent illusion had passed away, he again paced the room, a prey to the most painful indecision and doubt.