Then I trembled lest the shock of seeing me there in that silent vault should kill her, or do her serious injury, and yet I longed to hear her speak, I longed for expressions of her love.
Still more plainly did life appear, until I saw her open her eyes. They were dull and had a blank expression, but by and by they became brighter. She looked around the vault as if in wonder, then her eyes rested on the lantern, and again she turned them towards me. For a minute she gazed, then with a cry she sat upright.
* Although the reader may regard the foregoing as wild and impossible, I can vouch for the truth of a story identical in many points with that told by Roger Trewinion. The wife of a nobleman of the West of England, whose name is well-known in Cornwall, was supposed to be dead, and was buried in the family vault situated in the old parish church. A valuable ring which was on her finger when she died was allowed to remain, and it was known by the servants and villagers that this ornament was in the tomb with her. The sexton determined to get it, and accordingly at midnight made his way to the church. In seeking to remove the ring he caused the latent life to assert itself, and seeing the lady move he ran out of the church, leaving the lantern behind him. She became conscious, took the sexton's lantern, and found her way back to the hall. She lived long enough to become the mother of a son, who afterwards became the heir of his father's estates.—Note by the EDITOR.
CHAPTER XXII
THE VOICE OF THE DEAD
Oh, one more kiss from your lily-white lips,
One kiss is all I crave;
Oh, one more kiss from your lily-white lips
And return back to your grave.
—Old Cornish Song.
Long years have passed since the events I am now narrating, yet my flesh creeps as I write. Imagine, if you can, the circumstances that surrounded me; think of the position in which I was placed. I had learnt amidst anguish and despair that the woman I loved, and who I thought had called me home, was dead, and I had determined to visit her grave and to see her dead face. Then when I had found my way to her tomb, and uncovered her resting-place, I had seen the one whom I had thought dead move, and give other signs of life. When she sat up in her coffin my blood froze in my veins.
Was it my Ruth who lived? Was her death only fancied after all? Now I saw a purpose in all my blind wanderings! Now I understood the cry which I had heard sweeping across the weary waste of waters, "Come home and save me, Roger!" Now I saw meaning in my mad impulse to come to Morton Hall, even when the fires of hell burnt in my soul! Now I knew why I had heard the strange words, "Visit her tomb!"
Merciful Heaven, from what had I saved her? Suppose she had regained consciousness while within the narrow confines of that narrow coffin! No air, no room, no light! The horror of the thought is enough to drive one mad; what then must the reality be?