The Marchioness, on receiving the message hurried into the room, and found her arguments for delay, answered in every point by the steady step and cheerful voice of her daughter. Ferdinand rejoiced in the change, without investigating the cause; but his mother looked towards Louis. She saw that it was some observation Marcella had made upon his conduct, which had produced this dangerous resolution. Experience convinced her, that so quick an alteration could not arise naturally; but she feared to oppose the effect, and durst not conjecture the cause.
In half an hour, they were re-seated in the carriage; and, by the orders of Ferdinand, who had received a whispered command from his sister, the drivers kept their horses to their fullest speed.
Little conversation passed in this day's journey. The spell of the two former ones was broken by the check in the morning. Louis wondered how he could have felt the ignis fatuus hope which that check had extinguished; and, with proportioned despondency, he silently counted the hours which, he believed, had too surely cut him off from the last moments of his friend.
Marcella spoke little; for she durst not spare any waste of strength, from the exertion necessary to bear the casualties of the journey and to satisfy the frequent anxious inquiries of her mother. The eyes of Louis turned often on her, with an expression of solicitude that penetrated her heart. But the effect it produced, favoured the first deceit she had ever practised in her life. It drove the blood from that heart to her cheek; and she looked well when her soul was almost fainting within her.
It was ten o'clock, on the third night after their leaving Harwich, that the harassed party entered on Morpeth-moor, within a stage of Alnwick. The darkness, during this latter dozen miles, concealed from his companions the increasing discomposure of Louis. Every step drew him now so near to Morewick, he was ready to break from the carriage, and escape at once to the side of his dying friend. These twelve miles seemed a hundred to his impatience; and, when the drivers drew up before the door of the inn at Alnwick, he sprung out, as if it had been into his Uncle's house.
Marcella would fain have made a proposal to go on, even during the night; but nature was at last subdued; and she did not chuse to speak, when she knew, that the now hardly articulate powers of her voice, would too truly proclaim that she had already done too much.
The Marchioness having alighted, Louis drew near to assist Ferdinand in bearing out his sister; but Marcella merely bowed to him, and gently waved him away with her hand. Ferdinand threw his arms round her waist, and supported her failing steps into the house.
She was seated, pale and silent, in a chair by the fire-side, (for the night was cold and wet,) when Louis re-entered from giving orders respecting their apartments. Don Garcia's hand was upon her pulse.
"Donna Marcella had best retire immediately," said the physician. "You want rest, my child!" rejoined the Marchioness, putting her daughter's arm within her's.
"But I shall be ready to re-commence our journey to-morrow at day-break!" answered she, gently turning her head towards Louis. He bowed, with a full heart; and she left the room, leaning on her mother and the physician.