“Rather strange affair that!” concluded Malcolm, laying down the paper.
“Vewy womantic! ha! ha!” laughed the young Duke. “Pwepostewous folly that, to dwown oneself for love! Ha! ha!”
Suddenly they were all startled by a terrified cry bursting from the lips of Evangeline. She sprang from her seat, and twined her arms round her eldest sister.
“Helen! Helen!” she cried; “Helen, dearest Helen, you are ill, darling! Speak, Helen! Speak, for Heaven’s sake! Oh, mamma, mamma, pray come to Helen; she is dying!”
Helen sat erect, still, rigid as a stone statue and as lifeless.
She had listened in a state of high-wrought feeling to the reading of the paragraph up to a certain point. She heard the description of Hugh’s emotion at the sight of the diminishing heights of the land containing all that he loved or prized. She knew that her form—her averted form was at that instant before his humid eyes.
She heard his despairing call upon her name; she saw him suddenly spring up upon the vessel’s edge, and leap out with a wild cry, plunging down, down into the dreadful depths of the surging sea, to find that peaceful release from intense mental anguish which she had selfishly and heartlessly denied to him here.
Then all was dark!
She sat motionless, stark, corpse-like, consciousness departing from her, and leaving her without sense or motion.
Mr. and Mrs. Grahame were disturbed at the undignified departure from the proprieties of life displayed by both Helen and Evangeline. Mrs. Grahame especially was grieved to think that the example of icy immobility set on all occasions by Margaret Claverhouse was not followed by both her sisters. The bell was rung violently by Malcolm, who, except Evangeline, displayed the most feeling of the family. Chayter was summoned, and Helen, accompanied by Evangeline, was borne to her apartment.