“You will be good to this poor girl when I am gone, Belinda!” said she, turning away from her as she spoke: “I only came to look at her for the last time.”
“Are you then serious, my dear Lady Delacour?”
“Hush! Don’t waken her,” said Lady Delacour, putting her finger on her lips; and walking slowly out of the room, she forbade Belinda to follow.
“If my fears be vain,” said she, “why should I disturb you with them? If they be just, you will hear my bell ring, and then come to me.”
For some time afterward all was perfectly silent in the house. Belinda did not go to bed, but sat waiting and listening anxiously. The clock struck two; and as she heard no other sound, she began to hope that she had suffered herself to be falsely alarmed by a foolish imagination, and she lay down upon her bed, resolving to compose herself to rest. She was just sinking to sleep, when she thought she heard the faint sound of a bell. She was not sure whether she was dreaming or awake. She started up and listened. All was silent. But in a few minutes Lady Delacour’s bell rang violently. Belinda flew to her room. The surgeon was already there; he had been sitting up in the next room to write letters, and he had heard the first sound of the bell. Lady Delacour was senseless, supported in the surgeon’s arms. Belinda, by his directions, ran immediately for Doctor X——, who was at the other end of the house. Before she returned, Lady Delacour had recovered her senses. She begged that the surgeon would leave the room, and that neither Dr. X—— nor Marriott might be yet admitted, as she had something of importance to communicate to Miss Portman. The surgeon withdrew, and she beckoned to Belinda, who sat down upon the side of her bed. Lady Delacour held out her hand to her; it was covered with a cold dew.
“My dear friend,” said she, “my prophecy is accomplishing—I know I must die.”
“The surgeon said that you were not in the least danger, my dear Lady Delacour; that it was merely a fainting fit. Do not suffer a vain imagination thus to overpower your reason.”
“It is no vain imagination—I must die,” said Lady Delacour.
‘I hear a voice you cannot hear,
Which says I must not stay;
I see a hand you cannot see,
Which beckons me away.’
“You perceive that I am in my perfect senses, my dear, or I could not quote poetry. I am not insane—I am not delirious.”