'Hush! hush!' whispered the old man affrightedly; 'you will live! God is good, and knows that we have suffered enough. The curse of the last separation is not pronounced against us! Live, live!'
'Father,' said the girl tenderly, 'we have that within us which not death itself can separate. In another world I shall still think of you when you think of me! I shall see you even when I am no more here, when you long to see me! When you go out alone, and sit under the trees on the garden bank where I used to sit; when you look forth on the far plains and mountains that I used to look on; when you read at night in the Bible that we have read in together, and remember Antonina as you lie down sorrowful to rest; then I shall see you! then you will feel that I am looking on you! You will be calm and consoled, even by the side of my grave; for you will think, not of the body that is beneath, but of the spirit that is waiting for you, as I have often waited for you here when you were away, and I knew that the approach of the evening would bring you home again!'
'Hush! you will live!—you will live!' repeated Numerian in the same low, vacant tones. The strength that still upheld him was in those few simple words; they were the food of a hope that was born in agony and cradled in despair.
'Oh, if I might live!' said the girl softly, 'if I might live but for a few days yet, how much I have to live for!' She endeavoured to bend her head towards her father as she spoke; for the words were beginning to fall faintly and more faintly from her lips—exhaustion was mastering her once again. She dwelt for a moment now on the name of Hermanric, on the grave in the farm-house garden; then reverted again to her father. The last feeble sounds she uttered were addressed to him; and their burden was still of consolation and of love.
Soon the old man, as he stooped over her, saw her eyes close again—those innocent, gentle eyes which even yet preserved their old expression while the face grew wan and pale around them—and darkness and night sank down over his soul while he looked. 'She sleeps,' he murmured in a voice of awe, as he resumed his watching position by the side of the couch. 'They call death a sleep; but on her face there is no death!'
The night grew on. The women who were in attendance entered the room about midnight, wondering that their assistance had not yet been required. They beheld the solemn, unruffled composure on the girl's wasted face; the rapt attention of Numerian, as he ever preserved the same attitude by her side; and went out again softly without uttering a word, even in a whisper. There was something dread and impressive in the very appearance of this room, where Death, that destroys, was in mortal conflict with Youth and Beauty, that adorn, while the eyes of one old man watched in loneliness the awful progress of the strife.
Morning came, and still there was no change. Once, when the lamp that lit the room was fading out as the dawn appeared, Numerian had risen and looked close on his daughter's face—he thought at that moment that her features moved; but he saw that the flickering of the dying light on them had deceived him; the same stillness was over her. He placed his ear close to her lips for an instant, and then resumed his place, not stirring from it again. The slow current of his blood seemed to have come to a pause—he was waiting as a man waits with his head on the block ere the axe descends—as a mother waits to hear that the breath of life has entered her new-born child.
The sun rose bright in a cloudless sky. As the fresh, sharp air of the early dawn warmed under its spreading rays, the women entered the apartment again, and partly drew aside the curtain and shutter from the window. The beams of the new light fell fair and glorifying on the girl's face; the faint, calm breezed ruffled the lighter locks of her hair. Once this would have awakened her; but it did not disturb her now.
Soon after the voice of the child who sojourned with the women in the house was heard beneath, in the hall, through the half-opened door of the room. The little creature was slowly ascending the stairs, singing her faltering morning song to herself. She was preceded on her approach by a tame dove, bought at the provision market outside the walls, but preserved for the child as a pet and plaything by its mother. The bird fluttered, cooing, into the room, perched upon the head of the couch, and began dressing its feathers there. The women had caught the infection of the old man's enthralling suspense; and moved not to bid the child retire, or to take away the dove from its place—they watched like him. But the soft, lulling notes of the bird were powerless over the girl's ear, as the light sunbeam over her face—still she never woke.
The child entered, and pausing in her song, climbed on to the side of the couch. She held out one little hand for the dove to perch upon, placed the other lightly on Antonina's shoulder, and pressed her fresh, rosy lips to girl's faded cheek. 'I and my bird have come to make Antonina well this morning,' she said gravely.