‘Her excellence commanded my love. She did not steal it. My heart never belonged to any other.’
‘Why do you quarrel with a poor dying creature about words? To me it seemed that she stole your heart. She came between me and the only man I ever loved. How could I help hating her?’
‘Why will you think and talk of these things?’ pleaded Cyril, going back to his seat by the bedside, determined, if it were possible, to bring this frivolous soul to the contemplation of eternity. She was so soon to be adrift on the wide ocean, and yet lingered so idly to trifle with the shells upon the shore.
‘Remember all your past life only as a dream that you have dreamt, a vision darkened by sin and folly. You were guilty of a great sin when you stole that letter, for you must have known that you were injuring a fellow-creature. You took the letter deliberately, to that end. But the motives that prompted you to that act are of little moment now. Think of it only as a sin to be repented of, with deep and heartfelt contrition.’
Then he spoke to her in his sacred character, and would not again suffer her mind to wander back to earthly things. He was with her, reading to her, talking to her, praying with her, for a long time, and he left her at last with a mind that was at peace with God and man.
‘You will see Beatrix,’ she said at the last. ‘Tell her that I was very fond of her—once. That the old love comes back now that I am dying. Tell her that it is sweet to me now to think of her being reunited to you. Ask her to forgive me—if she can.’
Cyril promised to come again early the next morning. She should have her husband and her family gathered round her bed, in that last sad communion, where the prayers of the living and the dying mingle in a solemn farewell.
But when Cyril came next morning, shortly after dawn, with Mr. and Mrs. Scratchell, and Bella’s eldest brother and sister, they were met on the threshold of the house by Mr. Piper, who told them all was over. She had died very peacefully, in the chilly hour just before daybreak, with her hand clasped in his.
‘Poor little woman!’ sighed the tender-hearted Piper. ‘She spoke to me so sweetly just at the last.’
And Mr. Piper forgave even the treachery of an intrigue carried on before his face. Had his wife lived, pardon would have seemed to him almost impossible; but anger died in his heart as he stood beside the fair marble figure, and looked at the flower-like lips that could never speak falsehood any more.