The memory of that long past time crowds on me to-night, and I feel it would be a relief to me to disburden my full heart of its feelings. I will finish this melancholy story.
It was a short six months after my departure from Mr. Neville’s hospitable mansion, when we came to anchor again in the port, with a couple of rich prizes, which we had taken a short time before, in the Gulf Stream. The first intelligence I heard, on landing, was that Miss Neville was said to be dying of a consumption. Need I say that a pang of keenest agony shot through my heart? A something whispered to me that I was the cause, at least partially, of all this. With a faltering tongue I inquired the particulars. They were soon told. I subsequently learned more, and shall conceal nothing.
From the day when I left ——, the health of Ellen had begun gradually to droop. At first her friends noticed only that she was less gay than usual, and once or twice they alluded jestingly to me as the secret of her loss of spirits. But when the expression of agony, which at such times would flit across her face, was noticed, her friends ceased their allusions. Meanwhile her health began sensibly to be affected. She ate little. She slept in fitful dozes. No amusement could drive away the settled depression which seemed to brood upon her spirits. Her friends resorted to everything to divert her mind, but all was in vain. With a sad, sweet smile, she shook her head at their efforts, as if she felt that they could do nothing to reach her malady.
At length she caught a slight cold. She was of a northern constitution, and when this cold was followed by a permanent cough, her friends trembled lest it foreboded the presence of that disease, which annually sweeps off its thousands of the beautiful and gay. Nor were they long in doubt. Their worst fears were realised. Consumption had fixed its iron clutch on her heart, and was already tugging at its life-strings. The worm was gnawing at the core of the flower, and the next rough blast would sweep it from the stalk. As day by day passed, she drew nearer to the grave. Her eye grew sunken, but an unnatural lustre gleamed from its depths—the hectic flush blazed on her cheek—and that dry hacking cough, which so tortures the consumptive, while it snaps chord after chord of life, hourly grew worse.
At an early period of Ellen’s illness, Mrs. Neville, who had been to the orphan girl a second mother, divined the secret of her niece’s malady. She did not, however, urge her confidence on her charge, but Ellen soon saw that her aunt knew all. There was a meaning in her studied avoidance of my name, which could not be mistaken. Ellen’s heart was won by this delicacy, until, one day, she revealed everything. Mrs. Neville pressed her to her bosom at the close of the confession, and, though nothing was said, Ellen felt that the heart of her second mother bled for her.
As death drew nearer, Ellen’s thoughts became gradually freed from this world. But she had still one earthly desire—she wished to see me before she died. Only to Mrs. Neville, however, was this desire confided, and even then without any expectation that it could be gratified. When, however, the Arrow stopped so opportunely in ——, her petitions became so urgent, that Mrs. Neville sent for me. With a sad heart I obeyed her summons.
“The dear girl,” she said, when she met me in the ante-room, “would not be denied, and, indeed, I had not the heart to refuse her. Oh! Mr. Cavendish, you will find her sadly changed. These are fearful trials which God, in his good providence, has called us to undergo,” and tears choked her further utterance. I was scarcely less affected.
It would be a fruitless task in me to attempt to describe my emotions on entering the chamber of the dying girl. I have no recollection of the furniture of the room, save that it was distinguished by the exquisite neatness and taste which always characterized Ellen. My eyes rested only on one object—the sufferer herself.
She was reclining on a couch, her head propped up with pillows, and her right hand lying listlessly on the snowy counterpane. How transparent that hand seemed, with the blue veins so distinctly seen through the skin that you could almost mark the pulsation of the blood beneath. But it was her countenance which most startled me. When I last saw her—save at that one parting interview—her mild blue orbs smiled with a sunniness that spoke the joy of a young and happy heart. Now the wild hectic of consumption blazed on her cheek, and her eyes had a brilliancy and lustre that were not of earth. Then, her rich golden tresses floated in wavy curls across her shoulders—now, that beautiful hair was gathered up under the close-fitting cap which she wore. Then her face was bright with the glow of health—alas! now it was pale and attenuated. But in place of her faded loveliness had come a more glorious beauty; and the glad smile of old had given way to one of seraphic sweetness. When she extended her wan hand toward me, and spoke in that unrivalled voice which, though feeble, was like the symphony of an Æolian harp, it seemed, to my excited fancy, as if an angel from heaven had welcomed me to her side.
“This is a sad meeting,” she said; for my emotions, at the sight of her changed aspect, would not permit me to speak—“but why grieve? It is all for the best. It might seem unmaidenly to some,” she continued, with a partial hesitation, while, if possible, a brighter glow deepened on her cheek, “for me thus to send for you; but I trust we know each other’s hearts, and this is no time to bow to the formalities of life. I feel that I am dying.”