"He is still here, my Zorilda, and listening to a tale of woe which concerns us all; but my child, Heaven has sent you support in this dear and newly found relation. May you rest on him as on a pillar of strength, and be enabled to stand firm under divine assistance! I too have been a Cassandra, but you must hear the dismal story from other lips. I cannot tell it to you."
"You have given me a clue," said Zorilda, who turned as pale as ashes, "which too fatally directs my imagination, though not perhaps through every winding of the labyrinth. Speak, oh speak! you need not fear to trust me; I can bear to hear. Yes, I can bear to hear even that Algernon—my once loved——"
The words which Zorilda would have uttered died upon her lips, and she fell senseless at Mrs. Gordon's feet.
When she recovered recollection, she found herself laid on a sofa, while Mr. Playfair kneeled at her side, invoking heavenly mercy in her behalf. He had put every one out of the room, and took upon himself the task of preparing her for a full disclosure; but Zorilda's quick eye and mind anticipated the conclusion, and she was in possession of the whole ere it was designed that she should be informed of more than half the direful narrative.
Mr. Playfair did not give Algernon's letter till after imagination was so wrought upon, that even that dreadful document by realizing the horrors of the scene which it exhibited, prevented reason from deserting her throne to wander irretrievably into the wild regions of maniac desolation.
"It is done!" said Zorilda; "it is finished. Lord, thou wouldst have my whole heart, and it is thine! 'Whom have I in heaven but thee, and whom do I desire on earth beside thee.' I can say this now—Hah! killed by his hand! a murderer! But he is pardoned. Oh say not that forgiveness is impossible!
'Between the death-deed and the ground
He mercy sought and mercy found.'
Tell me not that he did not repent the act."
A violent shuddering came over her whole frame, from which suddenly starting up, she gazed round the room, and asked for Mrs. Gordon, who waited but the slightest movement in the apartment to open the door, and heedless of her own affliction, fly to the aid of sorrow yet greater than that which she suffered.
But there was now no longer any apparent weakness to combat—no excess of feeling to assuage—all was still.