On those features, death had stamped his seal.
But there was a thought, which bore the ascendancy over this in Delmé's mind. It was a thought which rose involuntarily,--one for which he could not then account, and cannot now. For some seconds, it swayed his every emotion. He felt the conviction--deep, undefinable--that there was indeed a soul, to "shame the doctrine of the Sadducee."
He deemed that on those lineaments, this was the language forcibly engraven! The features were still and fixed:--the brow alone revealed a dying sense of pain.
The lips! how purple were they! and the eye, that erst flashed so freely:--the yellow film of death had dimmed its lustre.
The legs were apart, and one of the feet was in the lake. Henry tried to chafe his brother's forehead.
In vain! in vain! he knew it was in vain!
He let the head fall, and buried his face in his hands.
He turned reproachfully, to gaze on that cloudless Heaven, where the moon, and the brilliant stars, and the falling meteor, seemed to hold a bright and giddy festival.
He clasped his hands in mute agony. For a brief moment--his dark eye seeming to invite His wrath--he dared to arraign the mercy of God, who had taken what he had made.
It was but for a moment he thus thought.