“Philip,” she cried again and again, straining the dear form closer and yet closer in her fond embrace, “come back to your Evelyn,” when, O wondrous to relate! the spirit just about to take wing, and emerge from the dark terrors of the “valley of the shadow of death,” or intermediate state, into life and immortality, paused,—wavered—looked back lovingly, and returned to the body. A Divine influx descending through that tender woman’s bosom, established a human sympathy once more with the apparently lifeless frame, and D’Arcy again breathed the breath of life.
CHAPTER XXI.
ELLA
Evelyn had saved Philip D’Arcy’s life, but almost at the cost of her own. The reaction from intense despair to the excess of joy, was too much for her, and to a deathlike swoon succeeded the frantic ravings of delirium. The fever of her beloved had fastened its cruel fangs in her very vitals. During weeks and weeks of suffering, I scarcely left the bedside of my poor friend—for ever and for ever did she utter the name of Philip, her true mate, her celestial bridegroom, her first, last, her only love. Unwilling that other ears should discover the secret of her heart, I permitted none to approach, cautiously concealing from Ella the dangerous nature of the malady, lest the dear girl should insist on sharing my anxious watch, and thus be made aware of her mother’s weakness—a weakness which, while pitying, I deeply deplored. Poor D’Arcy too, I remembered, must not be left alone with strangers. At my desire, therefore, Ella, accompanied by an elderly female attendant, supplied her mother’s place in the sick room of him who still required the utmost attention and solicitude.
Many days elapsed ere the patient was pronounced out of danger, and permitted to speak.
“Sir, I am both surprised and happy to be able to announce your convalescence; and it is to the devoted attention of this young girl,” designating Ella, “that, under divine Providence, you owe your life.” So spake the man of science, not aware of the whole truth, as we know it, and he spake as he thought. The sick man turned a grateful look on his young nurse, gently raising the hand she had placed in his to his pallid lips.
Many a time, as he daily grew stronger, would D’Arcy desire to ask after Evelyn; and yet, simple as was the question, it appeared as if his tongue refused to frame it. “Strange that she never inquires—never comes,” he mused. “Were not Ella so calm, I should say her mother, too, must be ill.” At length, he determined to solve his doubts—“Your dear mother, my child, and Miss Mildmay—tell me of them?”
“Poor mama,” replied the young girl, “is not very well.”
“Nothing serious, I trust.”