“I will; to-night or to-morrow morning. And now good-bye.”
He pressed her hand warmly, and mounting his horse, rode swiftly away back to Yorke Towers.
The day passed, and Violet kept her own room. Leonard did not return that night, and no intelligence came from Yorke Towers.
Night came down calm and still, and when everybody had retired to their own rooms, Violet Arleigh stole from her chamber and went softly down-stairs to the drawing-room, where her mother lay sleeping the long, last sleep—never to open her eyes again upon the scenes of this world; never to speak a loving word to her child; to lie in the cold, dark grave alone with the worm and corruption. Violet’s heart bled at the thought. She opened the drawing-room door softly, and entering, crept to the side of the couch upon which the body lay.
The burial casket would not arrive until a late hour that night, so the body had been placed upon a low couch strewn with fragrant flowers. In an adjoining room, Doctor Danton and a grave-faced man, a stranger to Violet, sat alone. No one else kept watch, for it was a special request of the old physician. He had been Rosamond Arleigh’s medical adviser for years, and was like a brother to her. Violet crept to the side of the couch where the cold form was lying, and knelt down. She buried her face upon the pillow beside the cold cheek.
“Mamma, mamma!” wailed the girl in broken accents. “Come back to me, mamma, for oh, I can not live without you!”
It was the burden of her cry—a cry which has gone up from many an aching heart, but all in vain. The words died upon her lips in a stifled groan. Powers above! could it be true? Was her brain turning, or had she imagined it? Surely—surely she had seen the eyelids flutter, and something like a feeble respiration stirred the snowy linen on Rosamond Arleigh’s breast.
CHAPTER VI.
GONE!