Lady D--here suggested the possibility of his labouring under the hallucinations of a fever;but to this Lady Ardagh quickly replied: 'Oh!no,no!Would to God I could think it.Oh!no,no!Wait till you have seen him.There is a frightful calmness about all he says and does;and his directions are all so clear,and his mind so perfectly collected,it is impossible,quite impossible.'And she wept yet more bitterly.
At that moment Sir Robert's voice was heard in issuing some directions,as he came downstairs;and Lady Ardagh exclaimed,hurriedly:
'Go now and see him yourself.He is in the hall.'
Lady D--accordingly went out into the hall,where Sir Robert met her;and,saluting her with kind politeness,he said,after a pause:
'You are come upon a melancholy mission--
the house is in great confusion,and some of its inmates in considerable grief.'
He took her hand,and looking fixedly in her face,continued:'I shall not live to see to-morrow's sun shine.'
'You are ill,sir,I have no doubt,'
replied she;'but I am very certain we shall see you much better to-morrow,and still better the day following.'
'I am NOT ill,sister,'replied he.'Feel my temples,they are cool;lay your finger to my pulse,its throb is slow and temperate.I never was more perfectly in health,and yet do I know that ere three hours be past,I shall be no more.'
'Sir,sir,'said she,a good deal startled,but wishing to conceal the impression which the calm solemnity of his manner had,in her own despite,made upon her,'Sir,you should not jest;you should not even speak lightly upon such subjects.You trifle with what is sacred--you are sporting with the best affections of your wife--'
'Stay,my good lady,'said he;'if when this clock shall strike the hour of three,Ishall be anything but a helpless clod,then upbraid me.Pray return now to your sister.Lady Ardagh is,indeed,much to be pitied;but what is past cannot now be helped.I have now a few papers to arrange,and some to destroy.I shall see you and Lady Ardagh before my death;try to compose her--her sufferings distress me much;but what is past cannot now be mended.'
Thus saying,he went upstairs,and Lady D--returned to the room where her sisters were sitting.
'Well,'exclaimed Lady Ardagh,as she re-entered,'is it not so?--do you still doubt?--do you think there is any hope?"Lady D--was silent.
'Oh!none,none,none,'continued she;
'I see,I see you are convinced.'And she wrung her hands in bitter agony.
'My dear sister,'said Lady D--,'there is,no doubt,something strange in all that has appeared in this matter;but still I cannot but hope that there may be something deceptive in all the apparent calmness of Sir Robert.I still must believe that some latent fever has affected his mind,or that,owing to the state of nervous depression into which he has been sinking,some trivial occurrence has been converted,in his disordered imagination,into an augury foreboding his immediate dissolution.'
In such suggestions,unsatisfactory even to those who originated them,and doubly so to her whom they were intended to comfort,more than two hours passed;and Lady D--was beginning to hope that the fated term might elapse without the occurrence of any tragical event,when Sir Robert entered the room.On coming in,he placed his finger with a warning gesture upon his lips,as if to enjoin silence;and then having successively pressed the hands of his two sisters-in-law,he stooped sadly over the fainting form of his lady,and twice pressed her cold,pale forehead,with his lips,and then passed silently out of the room.
Lady D--,starting up,followed to the door,and saw him take a candle in the hall,and walk deliberately up the stairs.Stimulated by a feeling of horrible curiosity,she continued to follow him at a distance.She saw him enter his own private room,and heard him close and lock the door after him.
Continuing to follow him as far as she could,she placed herself at the door of the chamber,as noiselessly as possible,where after a little time she was joined by her two sisters,Lady Ardagh and Miss F--d.
In breathless silence they listened to what should pass within.They distinctly heard Sir Robert pacing up and down the room for some time;and then,after a pause,a sound as if some one had thrown himself heavily upon the bed.At this moment Lady D--,forgetting that the door had been secured within,turned the handle for the purpose of entering;when some one from the inside,close to the door,said,'Hush!hush!'The same lady,now much alarmed,knocked violently at the door;there was no answer.She knocked again more vio-lently,with no further success.Lady Ardagh,now uttering a piercing shriek,sank in a swoon upon the floor.Three or four servants,alarmed by the noise,now hurried upstairs,and Lady Ardagh was carried apparently lifeless to her own chamber.They then,after having knocked long and loudly in vain,applied themselves to forcing an entrance into Sir Robert's room.After resisting some violent efforts,the door at length gave way,and all entered the room nearly together.There was a single candle burning upon a table at the far end of the apartment;and stretched upon the bed lay Sir Robert Ardagh.He was a corpse--the eyes were open--no convulsion had passed over the features,or distorted the limbs--it seemed as if the soul had sped from the body without a struggle to remain there.On touching the body it was found to be cold as clay--all lingering of the vital heat had left it.
They closed the ghastly eyes of the corpse,and leaving it to the care of those who seem to consider it a privilege of their age and sex to gloat over the revolting spectacle of death in all its stages,they returned to Lady Ardagh,now a widow.
The party assembled at the castle,but the atmosphere was tainted with death.Grief there was not much,but awe and panic were expressed in every face.The guests talked in whispers,and the servants walked on tiptoe,as if afraid of the very noise of their own footsteps.