“I must be gone,” she said to Captain Clairville, who still remained near her—“my father will miss me—but I care no longer for the flowers—let her wear them, they are fitter now for joy and beauty than for sorrow and death.”
She was fearfully agitated—her frame trembled—her face was deathly pale—unaccustomed to such outbursts of the lower passions, their exhibition, invoked by herself, filled her with terror; she betrayed a nervous anxiety to escape, like one in a den of ferocious animals, and shrank close to the side of Captain Clairville as she moved toward the door, seemingly afraid to go forward alone. When about to descend the stairs he saw her falter, and supported her to the hall, but before they reached it she had fainted. Ferris stood there with her bonnet and shawl on.
“There is a cariole at the door, sir,” she said, “I will go with her, I know the place.”
“I fear you will lose your situation, my good girl, if you take the part of this poor young thing,” said Captain Clairville.
“I shall not mind, sir; there are plenty more as good,” she answered.
“There are, Ferris,” he replied, “and you shall not suffer for your kindness.”
“I have snatched this for the poor child,” she said, when they were seated in the cariole, lifting the corner of her shawl and showing the garland of roses which had encircled Alicia’s head. “I felt sure her young heart was breaking to leave the flowers she loved trampled under foot, sir, and so I brought away this to comfort her.”
Captain Clairville smiled approval, but had not time to reply, as the driver stopped just then at the door of the old house in which Rosalie dwelt. The air had revived her, but in her pallid cheek and faltering step were visible the effects of the scene through which she had just passed—anxiety for her father seemed now to absorb every other thought, and with a rapidity which her companions could scarcely equal, she ascended the stairs, and pushing open the door of the still and darkened room, advanced with a noiseless step to the bed.
The woman she had left with him still remained at her post, but her look was solemn, and as she raised and then silently moistened the sick man’s lips with a drop of water, she shook her head with a significance which seemed to say there was no longer room for hope.
“You cannot mean that he is worse!” cried Rosalie, alarmed by her manner. “He is sleeping calmly, and I perceive no change since I left him.” And bending over him she pressed her lips fondly on his cheek. Its marble coldness startled her, and she raised her eyes with a glance of agony to the kind face of the woman.