“We will not interrupt your parting,” said Forsett, who seemed to have a touch of humanity in his composition. And beckoning to Ruth to follow him, he quitted the cell with Ipgreve.
Guy Fawkes, meanwhile, had approached the couch, and gazed with an expression of intense anguish at Viviana. She returned his glance with a look of the utmost affection, and clasped his hand between her thin fingers.
“I am now standing on the brink of eternity,” she said in a solemn tone, “and I entreat you earnestly, as you hope to insure our meeting hereafter, to employ the few days left you in sincere and hearty repentance. You have sinned—sinned deeply, but not beyond the power of redemption. Let me feel that I have saved you, and my last moments will be happy. Oh! by the love I have borne you—by the pangs I have endured for you—by the death I am now dying for you—let me implore you not to lose one moment, but to supplicate a merciful Providence to pardon your offence.”
Death of Viviana
“I will—I will,” rejoined Fawkes, in broken accents. “You have opened my eyes to my error, and I sincerely repent it.”
“Saved! saved!” cried Viviana, raising herself in the bed. Opening her arms, she strained him to her bosom; and for a few moments they mingled their tears together.
“And now,” she said, sinking backwards, “kneel by me—pray for forgiveness—pray audibly, and I will join in your prayer.”
Guy Fawkes knelt by the bedside, and addressed the most earnest supplications to Heaven for forgiveness. For a while he heard Viviana's gentle accents accompany him. They grew fainter and fainter, until at last they totally ceased. Filled with a dreadful apprehension, he sprang to his feet. An angelic smile illumined her countenance; her gaze was fixed on him for one moment—it then grew dim and dimmer, until it was extinguished.
Guy Fawkes uttered a cry of the wildest despair, and fell to the ground. Alarmed by the sound, Forsett and Ipgreve, who were standing outside, rushed into the cell, and instantly raised him. But he was now in a state of distraction, and for the moment seemed endowed with all his former strength. Striving to break from them, he cried, in a tone of the most piercing anguish, “You shall not tear me from her! I will die with her! Let me go, I say, or I will dash out my brains against these flinty walls, and balk you of your prey.”