At such a moment, not to comply with any wish of the sick man, was impossible; though, half fearful of his intention, she tremblingly put her hand in his.
“Dear, dear Lord Fitzhenry,” continued Reynolds, “you know I love you as if you were my own son. Death makes us all equal, and it makes me bold. I have often wished, longed, to speak to you, but felt it was not my place; and I had not courage; but listen to a dying man’s advice. I know all—you know I do. Oh, my dear master! repent, and turn from your evil ways! Do not any longer trifle with God, and with the happiness he has offered you! Do not cast from you the angel Heaven has sent you!”—and he joined their hands. “God of heaven!” he continued, with a trembling voice, “look down on these, thy servants, and make them happy together!”
Fitzhenry’s head fell on the bed, as if wishing to avoid the eyes of Emmeline, as he involuntarily sunk on his knees.
As for Emmeline, overcome and terrified at what had passed; fearful as to the manner in which Fitzhenry might interpret such a seemingly premeditated appeal to his feelings in her behalf; perhaps, even, humbled at the situation in which it placed her, she hastily, almost unconsciously, withdrew her hand from the feeble grasp of the dying man, while his dimmed eyes were still raised to heaven; and, before either he, or her husband, had time to discover her intention, she hastily left the room.
But she had no sooner quitted it than she repented her hasty flight. When Reynolds joined their hands, although Fitzhenry had not clasped hers in token of affection, still he had suffered his to remain with it; and, overcome by the old man’s address to him, he had appeared to have given way to the kind—the virtuous impulse of the moment. That impulse, and those virtuous feelings, might possibly have produced a favourable explanation; and she, by leaving him so abruptly, had now, she feared, evidently shown a reluctance to any thing which might have produced a reconciliation between them.
Twice she had her hand on the lock to return; but, timid from excess of affection, each time her courage failed her. The door which she had scarcely closed, reopened of itself, and she heard these words uttered by Fitzhenry: “It is impossible—indeed it can’t be so;—but depend upon it, nothing shall be wanting on my part to contribute to her happiness, and——”
Emmeline waited for no more. As one pursued by a horrid vision, she hurried to her own room. The shades of evening deepened around her, as, alone and half stupified with her various feelings, she counted the striking of the heavy hours as they passed. Not a sound was to be heard in the uninhabited house—no one came near her.
At length, when the clock slowly, solemnly sounded twelve, she started up, and, recollecting that her maid was probably waiting for her, she rung the bell, that she might dismiss her for the night; but she first sent her to enquire after Reynolds, whose room was in a distant part of the building. On the return of Jenkins, the report she brought was—“That my lord was still with Reynolds—that they were apparently engaged in serious conversation—for that no one was allowed to go into the room, my lord himself giving him the necessary medicines, and having dismissed the nurse.”
After her maid had taken off Emmeline’s gown, unplaited her hair, and, at her desire, lit the fire in her dressing-room, as she fancied it would be a sort of companion to her, which, in her present state of mind, she felt to be necessary, she sent Jenkins to bed, and, drawing her chair close upon the hearth, Emmeline remained lost in reflections neither cheering nor soothing. The near neighbourhood of a death-bed gives an awful feeling even to one in the full pride of youth and health. To be aware that so close to us a fellow-creature is probably just then passing, through the agonies of death, to that eternity to which we all look with awe, is an overpowering sensation; and Emmeline shuddered as these thoughts crossed her mind. She cast her eyes fearfully round the room, and endeavoured to brighten the flame in the grate. Still death and its horrors hung over her imagination, which wandered now to future scenes of pain and punishment; and the thought that Fitzhenry—her loved Fitzhenry, who had wound himself round every fibre of her heart—might perhaps be an outcast from that heaven to which she had been taught to look, as the end and aim of her existence, was agony. For she could not conceal from herself that he was living in bold defiance, or rather in total disregard and indifference to the will and laws of his God.
Emmeline’s blood curdled, and a cold shiver crept all over her frame. Instinctively she sunk on her knees, and prayed for him who had never been taught to pray for himself. Her head sank on her clasped hands, which rested on a chair beside her; her long hair falling over her face and shoulders. The dead silence that surrounded her, appalled her awe-stricken mind; she eagerly listened for some sound of human existence and neighbourhood; but nothing was to be heard but the regular vibration of the great clock in the hall. Emmeline remained kneeling, till her nervous agitation grew so painfully strong, that she hardly dared to move, and had not power to shake off the superstitious horror which had taken possession of her. Every limb trembled; the cold sweat stood on her forehead; and it was an inexpressible relief to her disordered mind, when, at length, she heard a slow step in the gallery, and a gentle knock at her door. She concluded it was her maid, bringing her some tidings of Reynolds, and she quickly and joyfully bade her enter. The door softly opened, and Fitzhenry appeared.