"How strange!" said Henry Lovell; "how like Edward, too; though not quite so moral and just, as he generally piques himself upon being."
"Ay," said Sir Edmund, "I must do him the justice to say, that he added, 'Had I been Lorenzo, I should have felt myself bound to devote my life to Amina, to have made her happy at the expense of my own happiness; but there is, to me, something so dreadful in life destroyed, in death dealt by the hand of a woman, under any circumstances whatever.'"—
As Sir Edmund was saying these last words, I felt the sick faint sensation that had been coming over me during the last few minutes, suddenly increase, and he was interrupted by Mrs. Ernsley exclaiming, "Good Heavens, Miss Middleton, how pale you look! are you ill?"
Mrs. Brandon, who heard her, rushed to me; by a strong effort, I recovered myself, swallowed the glass of water she brought, and walked to the piano-forte, where Rosa Moore was singing.
I laid my head on the comer of the instrument, and as my tears fell fast, I breathed more freely. When, later, Sir Edmund apologised to me for having made me ill with his horrid story, and Henry whispered to me, "Mrs. Ernsley has just announced that you are of the same species as Miss Farnley, who cannot hear of death, or of wounds, without swooing, but that you are only a somewhat better actress," I was able to smile, and speak gaily. Soon after, I went to bed; as I undressed, I thought of these lines of Scott:—
"O I many a shaft at random sent,
Finds mark the archer little meant
And many a word, at random spoken.
May soothe or wound a heart nigh broken."
That night I had little sleep, and when I woke in the morning, my pillow was still wet with tears.
CHAPTER VI.
"Yes, deep within and deeper yet
The rankling shaft of conscience hide;
Quick let the melting eye forget
The tears that in the heart abide.
………………….
Thus oft the mourner's wayward heart
Tempts him to hide his grief and die;
Too feeble for confession's smart—
Too proud to bear a pitying eye."