“Can you hear me?” said her husband’s voice, low and full of emotion. “Rochford is here, sir; do you want him?”
He shook his head as he spoke to the two awe-stricken men behind.
“Eh!” Sir Walter gave a start as if half awakened. “Who did you say?—I think—I must have been asleep. Some one who wants me? They’ll excuse a—a sick old man. Some one—who?—Gerald—whom did you say?”
“Rochford, sir, whom you wanted to see.”
“Rochford! What should I want with Rochford? He’s the—lawyer—the lawyer. We have had plenty to do with lawyers in our day. Yes—I think there was something if I could remember. Alicia, where is Alicia?”
She rose up quickly, all those wild sensations in her stilled by this supreme call. “I am here, father,” she said. Her countenance was perfectly colorless, except for two spots of red, of excitement and misery, on her cheeks. Her lips were parched, it was with difficulty she spoke.
“Yes, my love; stand by me till the last. What was it? I feel stronger. I can attend—to business. Tell me, my child, what it was.”
She stood for a moment speechless, turning her face toward them all with a look which was awful in its internal struggle. How was she to say it? How not to say it? Her fate, and the fate of the others, seemed to lie in her hands. It was not too late. His strength fluctuated from moment to moment, yet he could do what was needed still.
“Father,” she began, moistening her dry lips, trying to get the words out of her parched throat.
Sir Walter had opened his heavy eyes. He looked round with a bewildered, half-smiling look. Suddenly he caught sight of Edward Penton, who stood lingering, hesitating, half in sympathy, half in resistance, behind. The dying man gave a little cry of pleasure. “Ah! I remember,” he said.