"My dear girl, are you ill?"

"Not ill--only heartsick, weary of the world and its ways. If it were not for the love of a few dear friends, I could leave it to-morrow without the least regret."

As she said this, the poor girl looked so sadly and earnestly into Mrs.

Martin's face, that it brought the tears into her eyes.

"You must have thought that we had forsaken you altogether; but Johnnie has been very ill, alarmingly so; and I could not leave him to the care of the servant. Henry would have been up to see you, but since Mr.

Fitzmorris has left us, every moment of his time has been occupied, as he is obliged to take the charge of both the parishes, with the additional care of the Sunday schools; I have been unable to attend my cla.s.s, and your absence threw all the work upon him."

"Mr. Fitzmorris gone?" Dorothy turned pale and almost gasped for breath.

"What took him away?"

"A sad, sad accident. Did no one tell you of it."

"My dear Mrs. Martin, how should I hear the news of the parish. I am confined all day, and sometimes during the greater part of the night, to my mother's sick-room. But tell me about Mr. Fitzmorris; I have felt grieved and hurt at his seeming desertion of us, when Mrs. Rushmere grew so much worse. Is anything amiss with Lord Wilton?"

"His lordship has written once to his nephew, since he left England. In his letter he spoke very despondingly of the health of his son. Mr.

Fitzmorris' sudden departure from Hadstone had no reference to the Earl or his affairs. In truth, Dorothy, it is a sad tale. His brother is dead. Lost his life by a fall from his horse in a steeple chase. Mr.

Fitzmorris was sent for in all haste. He started immediately, and though his brother was living when he arrived at ----, he was unconscious, and never recovered his senses before he died. Poor Mr. Fitzmorris feels this dreadfully, and keenly regrets that he was not able to prepare him for the awful change from time to eternity--that his brother should die in his sins among gamblers and men of the world, who had dissipated his fortune and led him astray."

"It is dreadful!" said Dorothy. "I know how he feels it; I believe that if he could have saved his brother's soul by the sacrifice of his own, he would have done it. But will he ever return to Hadstone?"

"Directly he can arrange his brother's affairs, which are in a state of great confusion. His reckless extravagance has involved the estate, and Gerard is afraid, that when everything is sold, there will hardly be enough to satisfy the creditors. You know how honest and upright he is, and how it will pain him if he thought these people would suffer loss through any one belonging to him. He carries this romantic sense of honesty so far, that Henry is afraid that he will give up his property to pay these debts."

"He is so n.o.ble! How I honour him for it!" cried Dorothy. "How cruel it was of me to blame him for neglect, when he was not only at the post of duty, but suffering such anguish of mind. How cautious we should be in judging the actions of others. I can scarcely forgive myself for harbouring against him an unkind thought."

"And how is dear Mrs. Rushmere?" said her friend, anxious to turn the conversation into another channel, when she saw the big, bright tears that trembled on Dorothy's eyelids.

"She is fast sinking. We may not hope to keep her here much longer. I read and pray with her whenever she is able to bear it. But, oh, dear Mrs. Martin, my reading and praying is so different from his! I did so long to see him and hear him again."

"Do not look so despondingly, Dorothy. You will soon see him again. In the meanwhile, tell me about Gilbert, and how you met."

"As friends--nothing more. I might add, scarcely as friends. I am so thankful that my heart was weaned from him months ago. I now marvel at myself how I ever could have felt for him the pa.s.sionate affection I did, or how his desertion could plunge me into such intense grief."

Mrs. Martin pressed her hand warmly.

"I expected as much. And his wife?"

"Don't ask me what I think of her;" and Dorothy waved her hands impatiently.

"Your silence is eloquent, Dorothy. And when can you come to me?"

"When dear mother no longer requires my services. At times she suffers cruel agony, but she bears it with angelic patience. She will be delighted to see you."

Dorothy led the way to the sick chamber. They found Mrs. Rushmere awake and in a very happy frame of mind; she greeted Mrs. Martin with unaffected pleasure, and talked cheerfully and hopefully of her approaching end. She made no comment on her son's marriage, and scarcely alluded to his wife, expressing great thankfulness that she had been permitted to see Gilbert before she died.

"Dear Mrs. Martin," she said, "I need scarcely ask you to be kind to Dorothy when she has no longer a mother to love and care for her, or a home here in which she can live in peace. A loving daughter she has been to me, a faithful and devoted nurse. The blessing she has been to me in this cruel and loathsome illness, the good G.o.d who gave her to me alone knows. That He may bless and reward her when I am in the clay is my constant prayer. May she never want a friend in her hour o' need."

Mrs. Martin stooped and kissed the pale earnest face of the dying woman.

"G.o.d will raise her up friends, never fear. The good Father never forsakes those who love and honour him."

Mrs. Rushmere threw her arms about her visitor's neck, and drew her head down to the pillow, while she whispered in her ear, "Take her out o' this, Mrs. Martin, as soon as I am gone. These strange women are killing her with their hard, unfeeling ways. It is a'most breaking my poor heart to see the dear child pining day by day."

"She will have her reward, my dear old friend, no one ever loses by suffering in a good cause."

Mrs. Martin sat for some time with the invalid, and explained to her the cause why Mr. Fitzmorris and her husband had not been up to see her, and promised that Mr. Martin should visit her on the morrow. On inquiring of Martha Wood for Mrs. Rowly and her daughter, she was not sorry to learn that they had walked down to the village.

"In the humour I feel towards them," she said to Dorothy, "I would rather that they made the acquaintance of my handwriting than of me."

It was Dorothy's practice to visit Mrs. Rushmere the first thing in the morning, and carry her a cup of tea before the inmates of the house were stirring. Mr. Rushmere slept in the same room with his wife, but, since her illness, occupied a separate bed. As Dorothy unclosed the chamber door, she was startled by a low, hoa.r.s.e moaning, that seemed to proceed from the bed of the invalid. Alarmed at such an unusual occurrence, she hurried forward; the cup dropped from her hand, and, with a wild cry, she flung herself upon the bed, and clasped in her arms the still, pale figure that, for so many years, she had loved and honoured as her mother.

Mr. Rushmere was kneeling upon the floor, his face buried in the coverlid, holding in his trembling grasp the thin, white hand that no longer responded to the pressure.

"Mother! dear, blessed mother!" sobbed Dorothy, "speak to me again. One word, one little word. You must not leave me for ever without your love and blessing!"

"Alas! my child, she cannot, death has silenced the kind voice for ever," groaned the stricken old man. "My wife! my precious wife! I never knew half your value until now. All that you were, and have been to me.

Oh speak to me, Mary, my lost darling, smile once more upon me as in the happy days gone by. Say that you forgive your Larry for all that he has said and done amiss. You were allers an angel of kindness to a stern husband. I have been a hard man to you; but I loved you with my whole heart, though I could not allers tell you how dear you were."

"She was quite sensible of your affection, dear father, and would grieve to hear you reproach yourself; we have all our faults of temper. Mother made every allowance for that. She knew how truly you loved her, that your heart was in the right place. How did she die?"

The old man raised his head, and looked long and fondly on the still calm face of his dead wife.

"Sleeping as you see her there, Dorothy, as sweet and peacefully as a little child. The Lord bless her. She was surely one o' his gentle lambs. She generally spoke to me when the sun rose, an' told me to call up the folk to their work. About half an hour ago, I heard her own dear voice call me three times. 'Larry, Larry, Larry! it be time for thee to wake up out o' sleep. The Lord calls upon thee to rise. The night is far spent, the morning is at hand in which thou must give to him an account of the deeds done in the flesh.' I jump up, all in a cold sweat an'

cries out trembling all over with a deadly fear. 'Mary, did'st thee call?' An awful stillness filled the room. No answer came. The sun shone right upon the still pale face, an' told me all. It was a voice from heaven that spoke, the dear angel had been dead for hours."

Again his heart sank upon the coverlid, and the strong frame shook with the still stronger agony that mastered him. Dorothy thought it best to leave nature to deal with him, who is ever the best physician and comforter of the wounded heart, while she went to rouse the household, and take necessary steps to perform the last sad offices for the dead.

In a few minutes all was hurry and alarm, as the suddenly aroused inmates of the house rushed half-dressed into the chamber of death.

In vain Gilbert Rushmere tried to lead his father into another room; the heartbroken old man resisted every effort to separate him from his wife. The common-place condolences of Mrs. Rowly and her daughter were alike unheeded. It was useless to tell him that it was a merciful release from great suffering, that Mrs. Rushmere dying in her sleep had been saved the pain and agony of a separation from her family, or that she was now an angel in heaven.

The bereaved old man admitted all this; but looked upon her death, as far as he was concerned, as the greatest calamity. A loss so terrible and overwhelming, that he disdained to ask of heaven fort.i.tude to bear it, and he drove these Job's comforters out of his room, in the frenzy of his great sorrow.

"Do not torture him," sobbed Dorothy, "with this cruel kindness. However well meant, his mind is not in a state to bear it. Leave him alone with his dead for one little hour, till nature softens his sorrow with the holy balm of tears. The shock has been so sudden that his mind is prostrated with the blow. He will recover himself when left alone with the beloved. The silent eloquence of that sweet calm face will do more to restore him to peace, than all we can say to reconcile him to his loss."

"Oh, if she had only spoken to me before she died;" groaned Rushmere. "I should not feel so bad. I could bear my misfortune like a man. If she had only said in her soft kind voice. 'G.o.d bless you, Lawrence,' it would ha' been something to think on, in the long lonesome nights afore me; but she left me without a word. How can I sleep in peace in my comfortable warm bed, knowing her to be alone in the cold earth. Oh, Mary! my love, my treasure! How can I live a' wanting thee."

After a pause of some minutes, he looked up from the dead wife to his son, who was leaning against the bed-post, his face covered with his sole remaining hand.

"You may well mourn for your mother, Gilbert, many a salt tear she shed for you. The grief she felt for your cruel desertion broke down her const.i.tution, and brought her to this."

"Father, I was not alone to blame," said Gilbert, in a hoa.r.s.e voice.

"Yes--yes, lay the fault on the old man, he has no one now to take his part, but that poor la.s.s whose heart he nearly broke."

"Father," whispered Dorothy, gently taking his hand. "Mother forgot and forgave that long ago. She loved you and Gilbert too well to cherish animosity against either. We are all human and p.r.o.ne to err. If she could speak, she would tell you to banish all these sinful heart-burnings, these useless recriminations, and prepare to follow her to the better land, where she has found peace and a.s.surance for ever."

"I will, I will, if so be I could only find the way," responded Rushmere, with a heavy sigh. "Oh, G.o.d forgive me! I am a sinful man. I wish I could follow her dear steps, for I am a' weary o' my life."