Mr. Carlyle released one of his hands; she had taken
them both; and with his own white handkerchief, wiped
the death-dew from her forehead.
“It is no sin to anticipate it, Archibald, for
there will be no marrying or giving in marriage in
Heaven: Christ said so. Though we do not
know how it will be, my sin will be remembered no
more there, and we shall be together with our children
forever and forever. Keep a little corner in
your heart for your poor lost Isabel.”
“Yes, yes,” he whispered.
“Are you leaving me?” she uttered, in
a wild tone of pain.
“You are growing faint, I perceive, I must call
assistance.”
“Farewell, then; farewell, until eternity,”
she sighed, the tears raining from her eyes.
“It is death, I think, not faintness. Oh!
but it is hard to part! Farewell, farewell my
once dear husband!”
She raised her head from the pillow, excitement giving
her strength; she clung to his arm; she lifted her
face in its sad yearning. Mr. Carlyle laid her
tenderly down again, and suffered his wet cheek to
rest upon hers.
“Until eternity.”
She followed him with her eyes as he retreated, and
watched him from the room: then turned her face
to the wall. “It is over. Only God
now.”
Mr. Carlyle took an instant’s counsel with himself,
stopping at the head of the stairs to do it.
Joyce, in obedience to a sign from him, had already
gone into the sick-chamber: his sister was standing
at the door.
“Cornelia.”
She followed him down to the dining-room.
“You will remain here to-night? With her?”
“Do you suppose I shouldn’t?” crossly
responded Miss Corny; “where are you off to
now?”
“To the telegraph office, at present. To
send for Lord Mount Severn.”
“What good can he do?”
“None. But I shall send for him.”
“Can’t one of the servants go just as
well as you? You have not finished your dinner;
hardly begun it.”
He turned his eyes on the dinner-table in a mechanical
sort of way, his mind wholly preoccupied, made some
remark in answer, which Miss Corny did not catch,
and went out.
On his return his sister met him in the hall, drew
him inside the nearest room, and closed the door.
Lady Isabel was dead. Had been dead about ten
minutes.
“She never spoke after you left her, Archibald.
There was a slight struggle at the last, a fighting
for breath, otherwise she went off quite peacefully.
I felt sure, when I first saw her this afternoon, that
she could not last till midnight.”
I. M. V.
Lord Mount Severn, wondering greatly what the urgent
summons could be for, lost no time in obeying it,
and was at East Lynne the following morning early.
Mr. Carlyle had his carriage at the station—his
close carriage—and shut up in that he made
the communication to the earl as they drove to East
Lynne.
