“Where is Charley? Why is he not with me?”
“It was feared that his grief might agitate you.”
“Poor dear Charley!” said Ernest with tenderness; “it will be a pleasure to him now to think that we always have loved one another. But I should greatly like to see him; I have so much to say to him before we part.”
“I will call him,” said Mr. Ewart, rising.
He found poor Charles weeping at the door.
“You must command yourself, dear boy, for his sake. Ernest has asked to see you.”
Charles dashed the drops from his eyes, and made a strong effort to be calm, though the convulsive quivering of his lip showed the intensity of his feelings. With noiseless step he glided to the bed-side: his brother received him with a faint smile.
“Heaven orders all things well, Charley,” he whispered; “I always felt that you were better fitted than I to be the Lord of Fontonore. The time which we have spent together will seem to you soon like a strange dream that is past; but you will not forget me, Charley, mine own brother—you will not forget me?”
“And you will be kind to some for my sake. Poor Madge! you will not desert her, nor turn away Ben and Jack?”
“I shall never endure the sight of that boy!” exclaimed Charles, in an agitated voice. “He has given you nothing but torment, and now has cost a life ten million times more precious than his own.”
“He may have been saved for better things, and then my life will have been well bestowed.”
Mr. Ewart left the two brothers alone together, and with a slow, sad step, proceeded along the corridor, proposing to visit the gardener’s cottage, to which Jack had now returned.
“Oh, Mr. Ewart, is it possible—is he really dying?” exclaimed the young lady in unaffected sorrow: “so young, and with everything to make life sweet; it is really too dreadful to think of! Does he know the doctor’s opinion?”
“He knows all, and is perfectly tranquil.”
“The LORD is his strength,” replied the clergyman, and passed on.
Many an anxious inquiry after the young lord had Mr. Ewart to answer from different members of the household, before he reached the gardener’s cottage. He was desirous to know what effect his own deliverance and Ernest’s danger would have upon the mind of young Lawless.