hand--it was cold and powerless. I knew that the fortitude she had
promised to show, was giving way, in spite of all her efforts to
preserve it; so I let her hurry into the carriage without detaining
her by any last words. The next instant she and my father were driven
rapidly from the door.

When I re-entered the house, my watch showed me that I had still an
hour to wait, before it was time to go to North Villa.

Between the different emotions produced by my impressions of the scene
I had just passed through, and my anticipations of the scene that was
yet to come, I suffered in that one hour as much mental conflict as
most men suffer in a life. It seemed as if I were living out all my
feelings in this short interval of delay, and must die at heart when
it was over. My restlessness was a torture to me; and yet I could not
overcome it. I wandered through the house from room to room, stopping
nowhere. I took down book after book from the library, opened them to
read, and put them back on the shelves the next instant. Over and over
again I walked to the window to occupy myself with what was passing
in the street; and each time I could not stay there for one minute
together. I went into the picture-gallery, looked along the walls, and
yet knew not what I was looking at. At last I wandered into my
father's study--the only room I had not yet visited.

A portrait of my mother hung over the fireplace: my eyes turned
towards it, and for the first time I came to a long pause. The picture
had an influence that quieted me; but what influence I hardly knew.
Perhaps it led my spirit up to the spirit that had gone from
us--perhaps those secret voices from the unknown world, which only the
soul can listen to, were loosed at that moment, and spoke within me.