A female servant of the establishment came and found him still standing thus. The woman's startled alarm at first was great. To behold that tall statue-like figure in the chamber she had left, deserted by all living. But any weak demonstration of her fear was awed into reason and collectiveness, by the recognition of her dead mistress' son, who at length, as she stood transfixed in her first paroxism of terror to the spot, turned his face towards her, revealing a countenance on which no passionate emotion, no strong grief, nothing but a stern, fearful composure, was visible, and demanded in a low, hollow voice:
"When did she die?"
"This morning at nine o'clock," the woman answered, weeping.
"It was enough—she died; what reck'd it how?"
Eustace waved his hand in sign for her to depart. She obeyed immediately, closing the door instinctively behind her; seeming at once to feel and understand that he who had most right to command, within that chamber, had arrived.
And all through the lonely watches of that night; lock and bolt from within, secured, shut out from all intrusion, the agonized communion of the living with the peaceful sorrowless dead. The living in his agony which no tongue could tell; the dead, whose life might have been called one long painful sigh—one sympathetic groan, lying there, serene, senseless, smiling on his pain. But too great had been the shock of the deep waters which now overwhelmed his soul, for Eustace Trevor to consider, and bless God that it was so. He that but an hour before had come on his way rejoicing—his spirit lifted up as it were on eagles' wings, "from this dim spot which men call earth," to heaven, now was as a crushed worm—a broken reed,—stricken to the ground in hopeless, powerless despair!
"Why hast thou smitten me, and there is no healing for me? I looked for peace and there is no good; for the time of healing, and behold trouble!"
Such is man in his best estate; his highest strength is weakness—altogether vanity. Let the Almighty call forth his storm to break upon his head; let him wither his gourd—his spirit faints, and is ready to die.