“I would like to go in for one minute, if you do not object to waiting,” F. Chevreuse said. “That poor girl means to sit up all night, and she is likely to have no one else in the room. It is a gloomy watch, and she may feel better, if I speak a word to her.”
“Pray do not think of me!” Mr. Schöninger exclaimed.
F. Chevreuse stepped into the yard, and, as he held the gate open for his companion, Mr. Schöninger followed, though with some hesitation. There were many reasons why he would not be willing to enter that house. Indeed, the priest well knew that it was no time to take him there openly; but for some reason he wished him to come near enough, at least, to feel the sorrow and desolation which had fallen upon it. Perhaps he wished to soften Mr. Schöninger still more toward the unhappy man the burden of whose guilt he had borne; perhaps he wanted to remind him how entirely that burden had been removed from him by showing how cruelly it had fallen elsewhere.
The priest tried the door before ringing, and, finding it not locked, stepped quietly into the entry, which was lighted through the open doors of rooms at either side. In one of these rooms sat three or four persons. He said a few words to them, and closed the door of their room before going to the other.
Mr. Schöninger held back a moment, but could not resist longer the temptation to approach. The outer door was still open, and a soft light shone over the threshold of it from the parlor. Drawn step by step, he went to the threshold, and stood just where the light and shadow met, and the door framed a picture for him. The room seemed to be nearly all white and flowers. White draperies covered the windows, the pictures, and the cabinets and tables, the coldness changed to a tender purity by flowers and green leaves, arranged, not profusely, but with good taste. On what appeared to be a sofa covered with black lay a motionless, white-draped form lying easily, as one might sleep; but there needed not the covered face to show that it was the sleep of death. Candles burned at the head of the sofa, and a prie-dieu stood before it. All this Mr. Schöninger took in at a glance; but his eyes rested on what was to him the principal [pg 491] object in the room—Honora Pembroke, sitting near the head of the sofa, with the light of the candles shining over her. She looked up, but did not speak, as F. Chevreuse came in and knelt at the prie-dieu. Her eyes dropped again immediately to her folded hands, and she sat there motionless, an image of calm and silent grief. Her face was pale and utterly sad and languid with long weeping, her hands lay wearily in her lap, and her plain black dress, and the hair all drawn back together and fastened with a comb, showed how distant from her mind was the thought of personal adornment. Yet never had she looked more lovely or shown how little her beauty depended on ornament.
Mr. Schöninger, looking at her attentively, perceived that her face was thinner than when he had seen it last; and though the sight gave him a certain pain, it gave him, too, a certain pleasure. He would have thought her cruel had she been quite prosperous and happy while he was in torment.
F. Chevreuse rose from his knees, and Miss Pembroke looked up and waited for him to speak.
“Had you not better go to bed, and leave the others to watch?” he asked. “You will be exhausted.”
“I do not want to leave her, father,” she replied. “If she had had a long illness, it would have been different; but it is all so short, so sudden!” She stopped a moment, for her voice begun to tremble a little; but resumed: “She has no one left but me, and I want to stay by her till the last.”
“You will not be lonely?” he asked, dropping further objections.