“William, my dear William,” I anxiously said, taking his hand in mine, “why do you weep?”
William again turned his head toward me, and with a look of the deepest grief, he answered, “My mother is dead!”
No words can tell you what I then felt. William’s eyes beamed with intelligence; his tears were sorrowful as though not flowing by chance; and his voice was broken like that of one whose heart suffers. I uttered a cry, and knelt beside the bed of Eva.
“Oh! Eva,” I murmured, “you had reason not to despair of the mercy of Heaven!”
Even Lord Kysington trembled, and Lady Mary grew as pale as the corpse before her.
“My mother! my mother!” William sobbed, in accents that filled me with joy; then repeating the words of Eva Meredith—those words which she so truly had said he would find in the depth of his heart, the child continued aloud,
“I am dying, my son—your father is dead—you are alone on earth—but pray to God!”
I placed my hand gently on William’s shoulder, to induce him to fall on his knees; he bent down, joined his trembling hands of his own accord, and with a supplicating look to Heaven, replete with animation, he ejaculated, “O, God! pity me!”
I bent over the form of Eva; I took her cold hand, “O, thou mother that hast suffered so much!” I exclaimed, “dost thou hear thy child? Dost thou look on him from above? Be thrice happy! thy son is saved! poor woman, who has wept so much.”
Eva lay stretched in death at Lady Mary’s feet; but this time, at least, her rival trembled before her—for it was not I who led William from the room, it was Lord Kysington, carrying his child in his arms.