land, with a blanched cheek, but unchanging voice. There was a
pause. At that instant a man, whom Falkland recognised as the physician
of the neighbourhood, passed at the opposite end of the hall. A light,
a scorching and intolerable light, broke upon him. "She is dying--she
is dead, perhaps," he said, in a low sepulchral tone, turning his eye
around till it had rested upon every one present. Not one answered. He
paused a moment, as if stunned by a sudden shock, and then sprang up the
stairs. He passed the boudoir, and entered the room where Emily slept.
The shutters were only partially closed a faint light broke through, and
rested on the bed: beside it bent two women. Them he neither heeded nor
saw. He drew aside the curtains. He beheld--the same as he had seen it
in his vision of the night before--the changed and lifeless countenance
of Emily Mandeville! That face, still so tenderly beautiful, was
partially turned towards him. Some dark stains upon the lip and neck
told how she had died--the blood-vessel she had broken before had
burst again. The bland and soft eyes, which for him never had but one
expression, were closed; and the long and disheveled tresses half hid,
while they contrasted, that bosom, which had but the night before
first learned to thrill beneath his own. Happier in her fate than she
deserved, she passed from this bitter life ere the punishment of her
guilt had begun. She was not doomed to wither beneath the blight of
shame, nor the coldness of estranged affection. From him whom she had
so worshipped, she was not condemned to bear wrong nor change. She died
while his passion was yet in its spring--before a blossom, a leaf, had
faded; and she sank to repose while his kiss was yet warm upon her lip,
and her last breath almost mingled with his sigh. For the woman who has
erred, life has no exchange for such a death. Falkland stood mute and
motionless: not one word of grief or horror escaped his lips. At length
he bent down. He took the hand which lay outside the bed; he pressed it;
it replied not to the pressure, but fell cold and heavy from his own. He
put his cheek to her lips; not the faintest breath came from them; and
then for the first time a change passed over his countenance: he pressed
upon those lips one long and last kiss, and, without word, or sign,
or tear, he turned from the chamber. Two hours afterwards he was found
senseless upon the ground; it was upon the spot where he had met Emily
the