`Mr. Hattersley sometimes offers his services instead of mine, but Arthur will not let me go: that strange whim still increases, as his strength declines--the fancy to have me always by his side. I hardly ever leave him, except to go into the next room, where I sometimes snatch an hour or so of sleep when he is quiet; but even then, the door is left ajar that he may know me to be within call. I am with him now, while I write; and I fear my occupation annoys him; though I frequently break off to attend to him, and though Mr. Hattersley is also by his side. That gentleman came, as he said, to beg a holiday for me, that I might have a run in the park, this fine, frosty morning, with Milicent, and Esther, and little Arthur, whom he had driven over to see me. Our poor invalid evidently felt it a heartless proposition, and would have felt it still more heartless in me to accede to it. I therefore said I would only go and speak to them a minute, and then come back. I did but exchange a few words with them, just outside the portico--inhaling the fresh, bracing air as I stood--and then, resisting the earnest and eloquent entreaties of all three to stay a little longer, and join them in a walk round the garden,--I tore myself away and returned to my patient. I had not been absent five minutes, but he reproached me bitterly for my levity and neglect. His friend espoused my cause:--`"Nay, nay, Huntingdon," said he, "you're too hard upon her--she must have food and sleep, and a mouthful of fresh air now and then, or she can't stand it I tell you. Look at her, man, she's worn to a shadow already."
"What are her sufferings to mine?" said the poor invalid. "You don't grudge me these attentions, do you, Helen?"
`"No, Arthur, if I could really serve you by them. I would give my life to save you, if I might."
`"Would you indeed ?--No!"
`"Most willingly, I would."
`"Ah! that's because you think yourself more fit to die!"
`There was a painful pause. He was evidently plunged in gloomy reflections, but while I pondered for something to say, that might benefit without alarming him, Hattersley, whose mind had been pursuing almost the same course, broke silence with,--`"I say, Huntingdon, I could send for a parson, of some sort.--If you didn't like the vicar, you know, you could have his curate, or somebody else."
`"No; none of them can benefit me if she can't," was the answer. And the tears gushed from his eyes as he earnestly exclaimed,--"Oh, Helen, if I had listened to you, it never would have come to this! And if I had heard you long ago--oh, God! how different it would have been!"
`"Hear me now, then, Arthur," said I, gently pressing his hand.
`"It's too late now," said he despondently. And after that another paroxysm of pain came on; and then his mind began to wander, and we feared his death was approaching; but an opiate was administered, his sufferings began to abate, he gradually became more composed, and at length sank into a kind of slumber. He has been quieter since; and now Hattersley has left him, expressing a hope that he shall find him better when he calls to-morrow.
`"Perhaps, I may recover," he replied, "who knows?--this may have been the crisis. What do you think, Helen?"
`Unwilling to depress him, I gave the most cheering answer I could, but still recommended him to prepare for the possibility of what I only feared was but too certain. But he was determined to hope Shortly after, he relapsed into a kind of doze--but now he groans again.
`There is a change. Suddenly he called me to his side, with such a strange, excited manner that I feared he was delirious--but he was not.
"That was the crisis, Helen!" said he delightedly. "I had an infernal pain here--it is quite gone now; I never was so easy since the fall.bite gone, by Heaven!" and he clasped and kissed my hand in the very fullness of his heart; but, finding I did not participate his joy, he quickly flung it from him, and bitterly cursed my coldness and insensibility. How could I reply? Kneeling beside him, I took his hand and fondly pressed it to my lips--for the first time since our separation--and told him as well as tears would let me speak, that it was not that that kept me silent; it was the fear that this sudden cessation of pain was not so favourable a symptom as he supposed.a immediately sent for the doctor. We are now anxiously awaiting him: I will tell you what he says. There is still the same freedom from pain--the same deadness to all sensation where the suffering was most acute.
`My worst fears are realized--mortification has commenced. The doctor has told him there is no hope--no words can describe his anguish--I can write no more.'
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The next was still more distressing in the tenor of its contents. The sufferer was fast approaching dissolution--ragged almost to the verge of that awful chasm he trembled to contemplate, from which no agony of prayers or tears could save him. Nothing could comfort him now: Hattersley's rough attempts at consolation were utterly in vain. The world was nothing to him: life and all its interests, its petty cares and transient pleasures were a cruel mockery. To talk of the past, was to torture him with vain remorse; to refer to the future, was to increase his anguish; and yet to be silent, was to leave him a prey to his own regrets and apprehensions.
Often he dwelt with shuddering minuteness on the fate of his perishing clay--the slow, piece-meal dissolution already invading his frame; the shroud, the coffin, the dark, lonely grave, and all the horrors of corruption.