“Fear not—soon you will see me,” murmured Harrington, calmly smiling. “It is but a little while. Bend your face down to me.”
Bagasse did so, and Harrington gently pressed his lips to each cheek.
“There. It is the kiss of France,” he said. “Take it with my love. Farewell.”
“Farewell, brave zhentilman, farewell,” the Frenchman replied. “Farewell, till I meet wis you. I lay ze immortelle on you grave.”
He sprang back, erect and martial, and folded his arms. Emily sank down beside Harrington, calm, though with a face of marble, and Wentworth, white and stern with despairing grief, knelt on the footstool, with one arm around his neck and the other grasping his hand.
“Dear lovers,” said Harrington, smiling with pale tenderness, “when the wedding comes think of me as there. Do not think that you will be lost to my love, when I am lost to your eyes. I will be happy in your happiness; and my memory will be part of your joy. In all the good sweet hours, in all the hours of earthly trial and sorrow, I will be with you. Our happy days together are not ended—they will be ours again hereafter.”
“Oh, we have lost all in losing you,” wailed Emily, with the tears flowing from her eyes. “I wish that I had died before this sorrow could come to me.”
“And I,” gasped Richard; “my heart is broken!”
The fleeting soul rallied in the feeble frame of Harrington, and with a convulsive effort he raised his arms, and clasped them to his breast. They clung to him, silently weeping, and for a little while all were still.