Then rising, she once more repeated the words of forgiveness, and added, "I will now go and pray for you, my poor cousin—I will pray that your repentance may be sincere and true—that it may be accepted for Christ's sake, and that God may comfort you and support you even at the very last."
Mr. Dixwell rose too, and telling John Ayliffe that he would return in a few minutes, accompanied Emily back towards her house. They parted, however, at the gates of the garden; and while Emily threaded her way through innumerable gravelled walks, the clergyman went back to the cottage, and once more resumed his place by the side of the dying man.
CHAPTER XLI.
Sir Philip Hastings returned to his own house earlier than had been expected, bringing with him the physician he had gone to seek, and whom—contrary to the ordinary course of events—he had found at once. They both went up to Lady Hastings's room where the physician, according to the usual practice of medical men in consultation, approved of all that his predecessor had done, yet ordered some insignificant changes in the medicines in order to prove that he had not come there for nothing. He took the same view of the case that Mr. Short had taken, declaring that there was no immediate danger; but at the same time he inquired particularly how that lady rested in the night, whether she started in her sleep, was long watchful, and whether she breathed freely during slumber.
The maid's account was not very distinct in regard to several of these points; but she acknowledged that it was her young lady who usually sat up with Lady Hastings till three or four o'clock in the morning.
Sir Philip immediately directed Emily to be summoned, but the maid informed him she had gone out about an hour and a half before, and had not then returned.
When the physician took his leave and departed, Sir Philip summoned the butler to his presence, and inquired, with an eager yet gloomy tone, if he knew where Mistress Emily had gone.
"I really do not, Sir Philip," replied the man. "She went out with Mr. Dixwell, but they parted a little way down the road, and my young lady went on as if she were going to farmer Wallop's or Jenny Best's."
At the latter name Sir Philip started as if a serpent had stung him, and he waved to the man to quit the room. As soon as he was alone he commenced pacing up and down in more agitation than he usually displayed, and once or twice words broke from him which gave some indications of what was passing in his mind.
"Too clear, too clear," he said, and then after a pause exclaimed, holding up his hands; "so young, and so deceitful! Marlow must be told of this, and then must act as he thinks fit—it were better she were dead—far better! What is the cold, dull corruption of the grave, the mere rotting of the flesh, and the mouldering of the bones, to this corruption of the spirit, this foul dissolution of the whole moral nature?"