For a time the count was like a statue; frozen, impassible. I have said his grief was of that kind which had neither tears nor words. It escaped in deep, dry, agonizing sobs, and he clenched his nether lip with his teeth till the blood came.
"Blessed God, thou triest me sorely! Both are gone! both gone now!—and I am alone in this wide, dreary world again. At my age 'tis said we cannot weep."
In brief terms, I informed the count of the relationship between us, and how Ernestine and I had discovered at Nyekiöbing, that he was my long lost uncle, Philip—and she my cousin. He gazed at me as if he thought I raved; then he seemed to be convinced, and then dismissed it from his mind; for surprise, regard, and all minor emotions, had shrunk before the tornado of great and overwhelming grief.
"How long has she been dead?" he asked, in a low and husky voice.
"Since yesterday at noon—yesterday morning, she was alive and spoke to me."
The tears now burst from the eyes of the old soldier, and, stooping over the body, he embraced and kissed it.
Suddenly he uttered a cry, and turned to me with wildness and astonishment in his eyes.
"She is warm—she lives! Ernestine! Ernestine!"
I sprang to his side, and clasped one of her hands in mine. It was quite warm!
There was a convulsive motion in her fingers and feet; she opened her eyes, and a faint sigh escaped her; joy and terror bewildered me for a moment. Then I rushed away in search of a surgeon. Hurrying through the streets bareheaded, and without sword, scarf, or doublet, the first I met was no other than old Pennicuik. He thought me seized by delirium; but accompanied me without delay to the room of Ernestine, who seemed to be again hovering between life and death.