"I fear not," replied the surgeon.
Louis left the room.
He passed along the silent galleries, for it was now a very late hour, to the chamber of his friend.
"Wharton!" cried he, as he stood alone by the side of the Duke's couch, and gazed, as he thought, for the last time on his face; "Is it thus we are to part?" He took the inanimate hand; and, wringing it between his, held it there for a long time in the agony of his mind.
"O blighted affection! Tenderness mourning that man is frail! Here stand, and feel that thine is the canker worm that eats into the heart!"
The unconscious violence with which Louis clasped the hand of him he once loved and trusted, roused the dormant faculties of Wharton to some perception. His eye opened; but it turned vacantly and without recognition on the anguished face of his friend; and, heavily sighing, he fell back on the pillow.
"Here, vanity of man, and pride of intellect, behold thyself!" cried the inward soul of Louis, smiting his breast. "Here is all that woman ever admired, or that man envied! All that betrayed him to dishonour! All that bound me to deplore him, and to love him to the end! Wharton,—farewell!"
Louis could not utter a dearer appellative, than the low breathing of that ever-beloved name; and, with a death-chill at his heart, he pressed the unconscious hand to his lips, and rushed from the room.
Cornelia met him in the anti-chamber. She observed his extraordinary agitation; and, without a preface, which he had not sufficient self-command even to attempt, he informed her of his summons to the south-east coast, and of the probable event before his return.
"Cornelia," said he, "to what a scene may I leave you! But should the last extremity come,—should he then be sensible, and he chance to name me,—tell him under whose roof he dies,—and he will then know he may die in peace!"