There was some need of the caution; for the fever had left me so weak that it was with great difficulty I succeeded in reading Margaretta's letter.
"Dear Cousin Geoffrey,
"We parted with an assurance of mutual friendship. I shall not waste words in apologizing for writing to you. As a friend I may continue to love and value you, convinced that the heart in which I trust will never condemn me for the confidence I repose in it.
"I have suffered a severe affliction since you left us, in the death of poor Alice, which took place a fortnight ago. She died in a very unsatisfactory frame of mind, anxious to the last to behold her unprincipled husband or Dinah North. The latter, however, has disappeared, and no trace of her can be discovered.
"There was some secret, perhaps the same that you endeavoured so fruitlessly to wrest from her, which lay heavily upon the poor girl's conscience, and which she appeared eager to communicate after the power of utterance had fled. The repeated mention of her brother's name during the day which preceded her dissolution, led me to the conclusion that whatever she had to divulge was connected with him. But she is gone, and the secret has perished with her, a circumstance which we may all have cause to regret.
"And this is the first time, Geoffrey, that I have looked upon death—the death of one, whom from infancy I have loved as a sister. The sight has filled me with awe and terror; the more so, because I feel a strange presentiment that my own end is not far distant.
"This, my dear cousin, you will say is the natural result of watching the decay of one so young and beautiful as Alice Mornington—one, who, a few brief months ago, was full of life, and health, and hope; that her death has brought more forcibly before me the prospect of my own mortality. Perhaps it is so. I do not wish to die, Geoffrey; life, for me, has many charms. I love my dear father tenderly. To his fond eyes I am the light of life—the sole thing which remains to him of my mother. I would live for his sake to cherish and comfort him in his old age. I love the dear old homestead with all its domestic associations, and I could not bid adieu to you, my dear cousin, without keen regret.
"And then, the glorious face of nature—the fields, the flowers, the glad, bright sunbeams, the rejoicing song of birds, the voice of waters, the whispered melodies of wind-stirred leaves, the green solitudes of the dim mysterious forest, I love—oh, how I love them all!
"Yes, these are dear to my heart and memory; yet I wander discontentedly amid my favourite haunts. My eyes are ever turned to the earth. A spirit seems to whisper to me in low tones, 'Open thy arms, mother, to receive thy child.'
"I struggle with these waking phantasies; my eyes are full of tears. I feel the want of companionship. I long for some friendly bosom to share my grief and wipe away my tears. The sunshine of my heart has vanished. Ah, my dear friend, how earnestly I long for your return! Do write, and let us know how you have sped. My father came back to the Hall the day after the funeral of poor Alice. He marvels like me at your long silence. He has important news to communicate which I must not forestall.