'Merciful Heaven!' I cried, 'are my senses indeed wandering; and must I be driven forth homeless while fever is raging in my brain! Forbid it! Oh forbid it!'
By a violent effort I flung myself on my knees. With an earnestness which hastened the dreaded evil, I supplicated an escape from this worst calamity; and implored, that the body might perish before the spirit were darkened. But ere the melancholy petition was closed, its fervour had wandered into delirium.
A time passed which I have no means to measure; and I saw a female form approach me. She seemed alternately to wear the aspect of my mother and of Miss Mortimer; yet she rejected my embrace; and when I called her by their names, she answered not. She clothed me in what seemed the chill vestments of the grave; she hurried me through the air with the rapidity of light; then consigned me to two dark and fearful shapes; and again I was hurried on.
At last the breath of heaven for a moment cooled my throbbing brow. I looked up and saw that I was in the hands of two persons of unknown and rugged countenance. They lifted me into a carriage. It drove off with distracting speed.
The succeeding days are a blank in my being.
CHAPTER XXIV
For he has wings which neither sickness, pain,
Nor penury can cripple or confine.
No nook so narrow, but he spreads them there
With ease, and is at large. The oppressor holds
His body bound; but knows not what a range
His spirit takes, unconscious of a chain.