Mr. Kirke lapsed into slumber or stupor, and the room was silent again save for his irregular breathing, showing that his semi-insensibility varied in character from that of the day. Once, Jessie got up with the remark that it was time to renew the mustard-poultices that stimulated the curdling veins into action, and the pair did the office deftly and mutely. Eunice saw her sister, as she reseated herself, lay her cheek to the almost pulseless hand that rested on the coverlet, and close her eyes, while her lips were stirred by an inaudible sentence. The observer was thankful for this token of a more subdued and natural frame of mind than the suffering girl had yet exhibited. It was meet that she should seek the blessing of Heaven upon the union she was about to form, and that thoughts of prayer should be linked with loving ones of her earthly parent. And Eunice, too, prayed in her gentle, pious heart for the happiness of the child she had reared as her own, and for that of the true, fond brother, whose arrival in this their darkest hour, was like a direct answer from on high to the petitions she had offered, during their long days of watching and anxiety. With Roy to console and care for Jessie, the smitten household would be rich even in temporal comfort.
Was Jessie praying? She had proudly flung the charge of perjury at another, saying—"Of this sin, at least, I am innocent." What was the act to which she had given her consent—which the next hour would render irrevocable? It was when this question was forced upon her by some taunting demon, that she kissed the lifeless hand, and whispered the formula she had said aloud that morning at the open window, and repeated inly hundreds of times since.
"My father is dying!"
Since she could not lie down and die in his stead, she would sacrifice the poor hopes of peace that were spared to her from the wreck of her early dreams, to purchase for him what gratification she could still give him. Eunice might well eye her apprehensively, all that day and evening. Many with steadier brains and cooler blood than were hers have been consigned to insane asylums.
The wind was so loud, the roar of the pine outside the window so continuous, as to drown the sound of returning hoofs and wheels. They were ignorant of Roy's second arrival until he knocked at the chamber-door. Eunice said, "Come in!" and he whispered a few words to her before he approached Jessie.
"Are you quite ready?" he asked, softly.
She bowed her head in assent.
He disappeared for a moment, then came back with Dr. Baxter, Drs. Winters and Trimble. The physicians, with difficulty, aroused their patient so far as to swallow the stimulant they administered. Patsey brought in more lights, and retired, with the doctors, to the background—an interested spectator of the singular scene.
"Father!" it was Roy's voice, sonorous yet pleasant, that reached the senses and reason which were fast slipping away with life. "This is Dr. Baxter, of whom you have often heard—Jessie's very dear friend—and whose wife is the cousin of Jessie's mother."
The double reference was talismanic. Mr. Kirke opened his eyes to their full width—all recognizing, in them the glassy stare of dissolution—and tried to move his hand toward the person thus introduced.