On the second day, the fever and the delirium passed away, and I was permitted to see her; for Father Ignatius, with more than usual gravity on his long and solemn face, came to tell me that she was dying.
Dying! The good man gave me his arm, for I was very weak, and a partial blindness had come over me. I hoped it was the plague, that I might go with Ernestine; but, alas! it was only the result of sheer hunger, grief, and excitement.
I stood by her bedside in that darkened chamber, the features of which are still before me; its atmosphere was close and sickly; there were vials and bottles, cups and cordials, and between the festooned curtains a pale and sickly face, with inflamed eyes and purple spots upon a snowy skin, that contrasted powerfully with two massive braids of sable hair. And this was Ernestine!
Kneeling down by the side of the bed, I stooped my brow upon her thin wan hand, and wept as if my heart would burst. Ernestine also wept, but in silence; tear after tear rolled over her hollowed cheek, for she was too feeble to raise her head, and we muttered only incoherent sentences of sorrow and endearment—which it were useless to commit to paper; for to some they might seem exaggerated—to others perhaps too cold and passionless; as I can neither impart to them nor to the reader, the agony that thrilled our hearts, though the memory of that keen agony yet lingers in my soul, like an old and painful dream.
In expression her eyes were sad and fixed; there was a smile of ineffable sweetness playing about her thin white lips; but the dew of death was on her brow and about her braided hair. Believing that she was about to rejoin her sister, the poor girl said to me—
"I have been praying for you, and for myself—thus, like St. Monica, sending my most pious thoughts as harbingers to heaven. I am going to Gabrielle—ah, how she loved me!"
I could only murmur her name; then she put forth her dear lip affectionately for one more kiss. I became bewildered, and an emotion of wild satisfaction stole into my heart.
"'Tis the plague—it has seized me, too!" I muttered joyfully. "Dear Ernestine, I will soon follow you!"
The film was again spreading over my eyes, and there was a hissing in my ears; yet I felt the cold hand of Ernestine clasped in mine, and knew that its grasp was relaxing.
Then I heard the voice of honest Father Ignatius saying in my ear, and with a voice rendered husky by emotion—