What broken sentences--what pauses of silence yet more eloquent--what lavish, tender caresses passed between those two, over whom the shadow of desolation was closing fast, I have never guessed, nor, if I could, would I write them in these pages. I hold that there are partings bitterer to bear than a father's from his child, and sorrows worthier of the veil than those of Agamemnon.
Though Guy repressed now all outward signs of painful emotion, he suffered, I believe, far the most of the two. It is always so with those whom death is about to divide. The agony is unequally distributed, falling heaviest on the one that remains behind. If the separation were for years, and both were healthy and hopeful, very often the positions would be reversed; but--whether it be that bodily weakness blunts the sharp sense of anticipated sorrow, or that, to eyes bent forward on the glories and terrors of the unknown world, earthly relations lessen by comparison--you will find that with most, however impetuous it may have been in mid-channel, the river of life flows calmly and evenly just before its junction with the great ocean stream. Besides, the dying girl had suffered so much of late that the present change left no room for other feelings than those of unalloyed happiness, and the words of love murmured into her ear brought with them a deeper delight than when she heard them for the first time from the same lips.
Both were so engaged with their own thoughts and with each other that they never noted how the narrow space of time allotted to them was vanishing, rapidly as the last dry islet of sand when the spring-tide is flowing. They never heard the footsteps, more impatient at every turn, sounding from the room beneath, where Cyril Brandon paced to and fro. Constance had cut off one of her long sunny braids, and was twining it, in and out, in fetter-locks round Guy's fingers as she lay nestling in the clasp of his other arm: it was only their eyes that were speaking then. They started as the door opened suddenly, and Mrs. Vavasour came in, her face white, and her eyes wild with terror. She was too frightened to be gentle or considerate.
"You must go this instant!" she cried out, catching Livingstone's arm. "Constance, make him go; he has staid too long already. You know you promised."