“What it likes. Ah! is it my Mary who would dissuade me from tending a fellow-creature in sickness—a stranger in a strange land? No; she will rather assist me, and when exhausted nature requires that the ‘sister of mercy’ should take food and rest, my Mary will then relieve her at her post.”
Evelyn passed her arm caressingly around me. How could I find it in my heart to refuse her? and so our compact was sealed with a kiss.
It was time the sick man should have a tender and loving nurse; he was suffering from a low, nervous fever, with typhoid symptoms superadded.—Three physicians were in constant attendance. All light in the chamber was strictly forbidden, and the least noise caused the patient to start as at the firing of a park of artillery. Evelyn’s first act was to dismiss the coarse, fat nurse, who sat dozing and occasionally snoring in a comfortable easy-chair.—Taking the authority of a sister upon her, she paid the woman, and stated her firm intention of remaining the sole attendant at the bedside of her brother. Then gently and softly she moved about, robed in a peignoir of delicate white muslin, putting all in order. The sick man—half delirious—seemed to feel there was some change, for he murmured tenderly, “what angel is here?” Evelyn gently laid her cool hand on the fevered brow, but spoke not, for to do so was forbidden. The touch soothed and quieted the sufferer, and the physicians, when they came, found a slight change for the better. For six days and nights did Evelyn and myself watch alternately by the bedside of poor D’Arcy, who in his moments of wandering, seemed earnestly engaged in conversation with a spirit he named as Lilian, his affianced bride. As if in reply, he would say:
“I will obey you implicitly. Lilian, my sweet sister, bride no longer, since you so will it. I have now another guardian angel near. Say you so? and you warn me not to pass by my destiny. You caution me against such blindness, and you leave me.”
Much more was said, but so incoherent we could not gather the sense—and then, fatigued, the patient would doze off into the restless, unrefreshing sleep of fever. At length we could no longer deceive ourselves; the poor sufferer grew weaker and weaker, till at last the doctors unanimously shook their learned heads, and augured the worst. The principal physician, taking me apart, said,
“My dear lady, break it gently to the poor sister—for in twelve hours her brother will he no more.”
Evelyn, pale as marble, and almost as cold and motionless, waved me off. She had heard too well the ominous whisper. For twelve long hours, her arm tenderly sustained the head of the dying man, the other hand ceaselessly engaged in the last painful offices of affection. Utterly forgetful of self—even of her overwhelming sorrow—her one thought was how she could best soften the parting agony. Every moment she listened for the almost imperceptible breathing, each instant feeling for the beating of the heart. But the pulse waxed fainter and fainter, the death-rattle came to the throat—a long, long sigh—another, and another—then the heart ceased to beat, and all was over.
The doctors ascertained the fact of the decease, and were too glad to leave the house of mourning. Evelyn, tearless, desolate, despairing, sank on her knees beside the couch—she believed in prayers for the dead. I knelt beside her, and our united supplications ascended to the throne of the Most High. At length I arose, and would have led the afflicted one away. She resisted. “I will not leave him,” she said. Finding it useless endeavoring to change her resolve, I went home, and returned later, determined not to give up the point. Reluctantly the mourner consented to take some repose. She arose from her knees; then suddenly, and as one frantic, she flung herself upon the lifeless corpse.
“I will not leave thee, Philip—mine in death, if not in life.”
She clung to the helpless clay, her warm, fresh mouth pressing the ice-cold lips, her pure breath entering the paralyzed lungs. The passionate heart, full of the magnetism of life, beating against that stone-cold breast—now, alas! still for ever.