Walter Dance's situation appeared to be critical. Miss Castlemaine (entirely unused to accidents) feared it was so, and he himself fully believed it. He thought that great common conqueror of us all, who is called the King of Terrors, was upon him, Death, and it brought to him indeed a terror belonging not to this world.
"I am dying," he moaned; "I am dying." And his frame shook as with an awful ague, and his teeth chattered, and great beads of water stood on his livid face. "Lord, pardon me! Oh, ma'am, pray for me."
The young man had been all his life so especially undemonstrative that his agitation was the more notable now from the very contrast. Mary, full of fear herself and little less agitated than he, could only strive to appear calm, as she bent over him and took his hands.
"Nay, Walter, it may not be as serious as you fear; I think it is not," she gently said. "Mr. Parker will be here presently. Don't excite yourself, my good lad; don't."
"I am dying," he reiterated; "I shall never get over this. Oh, ma'am, you ladies be like parsons for goodness: couldn't you say a prayer?"
She knelt down and put up her hands to say a few words of earnest prayer; just what she thought might best comfort him. One of his hands lay still, but he stretched the other up, suffering it to touch hers. These ladies of the Nunnery were looked upon by the fishermen as being very near to Heaven nearer (let it be said under the breath) than was Parson Marston.
"I've done a many wicked things, lady," he began when her voice ceased, apparently saying it in the light of a confession. "I've often angered father and grandmother beyond bearing: and this night work, I've never liked it. I suppose it's a wrong thing in God's sight: but father, he brought me in to't, as 'twere, and what was I to do?"
"What night work?" she asked.
But there came no answer. Mary would not repeat the question. He was lying in extreme agitation, shaking painfully. She put the brandy-and-water to his lips.
"I must tell it afore I go," he resumed, as if in response to some battle with himself. "Ma'am you'll promise me never to repeat it again?"