“Cast yourself into the arms of God!” exclaimed F. O'Donovan. “Do not think! Do not fear nor look abroad. Hide yourself in the bosom of God! Sin and sorrow are but passing clouds, but heaven and hope and peace are eternal!”
Those beautiful violet eyes that had wept so many tears, now dry and dilating, were fixed upon him, and the face changed slowly. One wave of deep red had flown over it and sunk, and from pale it had grown deathly white, and over that whiteness had stolen a faint gray shade.
“Mother! mother! speak!” cried Honora Pembroke, weeping; but the form she clasped was rigid, and the face was beginning to have a blank, unnatural expression.
“Live for your son's sake!” said F. O'Donovan, taking in his her cold hands—“live to see his repentance, to see him win the forgiveness of the world and of God.”
But that blankness overspread her face, and the light in her fixed eyes grew more dim.
The priest stood up, still holding strongly one of her hands, and with his other made the sign of the cross over her, giving with it the final absolution. Then he seated himself beside her, and, while Honora fell at her feet, put his arm around the rigid form, and touched the cheeks with his warm, magnetic hand, and pleaded tenderly and with tears, as if she had been his own mother, now a word of human love, now a word of divine hope; and suddenly he stopped, and Honora, with her face hidden in Mrs. Gerald's lap, heard him exclaim, “Depart, Christian soul, out of the body, in the name of the Father who created thee, in the name of the Son who redeemed thee, and in the name of the Holy Ghost who has sanctified thee.”
She started up with a faint cry, and saw that Mrs. Gerald's head had dropped sideways on to her shoulder, her eyes were half-closed, and her relaxing form was sinking backward, supported by F. O'Donovan.
How it happened she did not know, but almost at the same instant Mrs. Macon entered the room followed by a doctor, and to Honora's confused sense it seemed as though helpers were all about and she was separated from her friend. She heard F. O'Donovan's voice repeating the prayers for the dead, and presently the weeping responses of the servant, but she was powerless to join them.
She roused herself only when she heard the priest speak her name. “Did I make any mistake? Did I do well, do you think?” he asked anxiously. “I did not know any better way.”
Honora opened her eyes and looked about.