"Apply to her sister!" replied Wharton, turning his brightening countenance towards approaching steps in the adjoining room. The careless hilarity of his features vanished at once, and gave place to an agitated sensibility, that sufficiently shewed, if his voice were the organ of tenderness, the power itself dwelt in his heart. He half rose from the sofa, to which he had been removed from the litter; and Louis with an emotion not less apparent, started towards the opening door.
Marcella was led in by her mother, and she approached with a faultering and conscious step.
Cornelia, who had taken her resolution, (whatever Wharton might be, and however he might profess himself) to make that just sacrifice to public opinion and to her own consistency, which should demand of him to make a probation at least;--drew on her own strength, and entered the room alone, and in an opposite direction.
She was advancing with a modest dignity, towards the happy group; but her step was hasty, as her eye instantly fell on her beloved cousin, and all the dangers he had just escaped, rushed at once upon her heart. Marcella entered at that moment, and looked confusedly round. She also saw the object dearest to her, but she durst not allow her eye to rest there. The same glance shewed her Cornelia, and being near her, unknowing what she did, she threw herself into her arms.
But the soul's unutterable language was not confined to the bosoms of those two conscious friends. In the same moment, Cornelia's hand was pressed to the lips of Wharton; and Marcella's to those of Louis. They knew whose lips were there, and, for that moment, they did not recall the hands so transiently blest.
The Marquis raised his daughter from the neck of her friend; and, having embraced her himself, as she leaned on his bosom put her hand again into that of Louis, and pressing them together: "There, my children!" said he, "receive a father's blessing, as you continue to love each other; and are worthy of this providence of God!"
Marcella fell on the breast of her lover, and Louis bore her in his enraptured arms into the next room, to the extended ones of her mother.
Mr. Athelstone had not stood mutely by, during this blameless eloquence of nature; but in the moment of the Marquis's separating his daughter from Cornelia, he clasped the hands of Wharton and Cornelia's in his;--and said, in a low and impressive voice:--"Though he has lain in ashes, yet he shall have wings like a dove! And, against what the Lord hath purified, who shall dare make an exception!"