With nervous and painful anxiety, therefore, he watched each motion and glance of William’s, for so our hero had told them to call him, his heart, so sensitive when they first met, could not bear to hear from woman’s lips the name of Walter. Evelyn’s voice, too, was singularly like Mabel’s, so much so that at times a tone or word of hers would send the blood in a warm glow to his cheek, and cause him to reply with a tenderness of look and accent that though it was but momentary, always sent a thrill of joy to the young girl’s heart.
“William,” said Charles Wentworth, one evening, as they sat together in their new home, admiring the rich hues of the autumnal leaves, and listening to the sweet music of Evelyn’s voice, as it came to them from the little garden where she loved to wander, “how is it, William,” he asked earnestly, “that, with a heart so sensitive and warm, you have never loved?”
With a sudden start, and turning away his head while his voice sunk to an accent of touching pathos, William replied, “I do love;” then hastily recollecting himself, he hesitated, and said in a hurried and agitated voice, “Yes—that is—I mean I love an ideal of my own.”
But Charles heard not the confused explanation, he dwelt with secret rapture on the thought that Evelyn was loved; she would be so happy, his sweet, his lovely sister; he knew that no one could help loving her.
A few months had passed away, and Walter (or William, as I suppose we must now call him) gradually becoming more dependent upon Evelyn’s society for his happiness, so sad and bitter were the memories that haunted him when alone, that he would fly to her presence to dispel them; it was a relief to his slighted heart to be so fondly welcomed; and almost unconsciously he was led on, till Charles had no longer any doubt that his affections were fondly Evelyn’s, and she so happy, so blessed in his presence, asked nothing more. The cold bleak winds of autumn, with their first breath, seemed to chill the little life in Wentworth’s feeble frame; every day he failed, and yet Evelyn could not, would not believe that he was passing away.
One evening, after a wretched day, he insisted upon being lifted into a chair, that he might behold the sun-set. Alas! it was only to hasten a few days the approach of the fatal messenger.
The exertion was too great for him, a large blood-vessel ruptured, and in a few moments all saw that his life was fast ebbing away.
Evelyn and William stood by in mute despair, the former, her cheek deadly pale, her whole frame convulsed, bent over him in that silent, tearless anguish, so terrible to behold.
“William,” whispered the dying man, “come near, I have a solemn charge for you—my darling sister! oh guard her, cherish and protect her, as you value my peace in death. I give her to you; oh promise me that you will be to her, father, brother, husband—all; promise me this, my friend, my only friend—and he took the cold passive hand of Evelyn and laid it gently in William’s, then clasping them in his own, he said, you promise me never to leave her, to value her happiness more than your own; do you not, oh will you not promise this for the sake of a dying man?”
“I will—I do promise,” faltered the young man, in earnest, solemn accents; “and may ‘God do so to me and more also,’ if I ever willingly cause her pain.”