His old friend, Sir Francis Seddley, summoned by the telegraph, was now gliding from London along the rails for Dollington station; but another—a pale courier—on the sightless coursers of the air, was speeding with a different message to Captain Stanley Lake, in the small and sombre drawing-room in Redman's Dell.
I had promised Chelford to run up to Redman's Farm, and let him know if the jury arrived at a verdict during his absence. They did so; finding that the body was that of Marcus Wylder, Esquire, of Raddiston, and 'that he had come by his death in consequence of two wounds inflicted with a sharp instrument, in the region of the heart, by some person or persons unknown, at a period of four weeks since or upwards.'
Chelford was engaged in the sick room, as I understood, in conference with the patient. It was well to have heard, without procrastination, what he had to say; for next morning, at a little past four o'clock, he died.
A nurse who had been called in from the county infirmary, said he made a very happy ending. He mumbled to himself, in his drowsy state, as she was quite sure, in prayer; and he made a very pretty corpse when he was laid out, and his golden hair looked so nice, and he was all so slim and shapely.
Rachel and Dorcas were sitting in the room with him—not expecting the catastrophe then. Both tired; both silent; the nurse dozing a little in her chair, near the bed's head; and Lake said, in his clear, low tone, on a sudden, just as he spoke when perfectly well—
'Quite a mistake, upon my honour.'
As a clear-voiced sentence sometimes speaks out in sleep, followed by silence, so no more was heard after this—no more for ever. The nurse was the first to perceive 'the change.'
'There's a change, Ma'am'—and there was a pause. 'I'm afraid, Ma'am, he's gone,' said the nurse.
Both ladies, in an instant, were at the bedside, looking at the peaked and white countenance, which was all they were ever again to see of Stanley; the yellow eyes and open mouth.
Rachel's agony broke forth in a loud, wild cry. All was forgotten and forgiven in that tremendous moment.