voice. There was a pause. At that instant a man, whom Falkland
recognised as the physician of the neighbourhood, passed at the opposite
end of the hall. A light, a scorching and intolerable light, broke upon
him. "She is dying--she is dead, perhaps," he said, in a low sepulchral
tone, turning his eye around till it had rested upon every one present.
Not one answered. He paused a moment, as if stunned by a sudden shock,
and then sprang up the stairs. He passed the boudoir, and entered the
room where Emily slept. The shutters were only partially closed a faint
light broke through, and rested on the bed: beside it bent two women.
Them he neither heeded nor saw. He drew aside the curtains. He beheld
--the same as he had seen it in his vision of the night before--the
changed and lifeless countenance of Emily Mandeville! That face, still
so tenderly beautiful, was partially turned towards him. Some dark
stains upon the lip and neck told how she had died--the blood-vessel she
had broken before had burst again. The bland and soft eyes, which for
him never had but one expression, were closed; and the long and
disheveled tresses half hid, while they contrasted, that bosom, which had
but the night before first learned to thrill beneath his own. Happier in
her fate than she deserved, she passed from this bitter life ere the
punishment of her guilt had begun. She was not doomed to wither beneath
the blight of shame, nor the coldness of estranged affection. From him
whom she had so worshipped, she was not condemned to bear wrong nor
change. She died while his passion was yet in its spring--before a
blossom, a leaf, had faded; and she sank to repose while his kiss was yet
warm upon her lip, and her last breath almost mingled with his sigh. For
the woman who has erred, life has no exchange for such a death. Falkland
stood mute and motionless: not one word of grief or horror escaped his
lips. At length he bent down. He took the hand which lay outside the
bed; he pressed it; it replied not to the pressure, but fell cold and
heavy from his own. He put his cheek to her lips; not the faintest