assassins. She asked, where they had hid her Falkland, her lord, her
life, her husband! and demanded that they should restore to her his
mangled corpse, that she might embrace him with her dying arms, breathe
her last upon his lips, and be buried in the same grave. She reproached
them with the sordidness of their conduct in becoming the tools of her
vile cousin, who had deprived her of her reason, and would never be
contented till he had murdered her. Mr. Falkland tore himself away from
this painful scene, and, leaving Doctor Wilson with his patient, desired
him, when he had given the necessary directions, to follow him to his
inn.

The perpetual hurry of spirits in which Miss Melville had been kept for
several days, by the nature of her indisposition, was extremely
exhausting to her; and, in about an hour from the visit of Mr. Falkland,
her delirium subsided, and left her in so low a state as to render it
difficult to perceive any signs of life. Doctor Wilson, who had
withdrawn, to soothe, if possible, the disturbed and impatient thoughts
of Mr. Falkland, was summoned afresh upon this change of symptoms, and
sat by the bed-side during the remainder of the night. The situation of
his patient was such, as to keep him in momentary apprehension of her
decease. While Miss Melville lay in this feeble and exhausted condition,
Mrs. Hammond betrayed every token of the tenderest anxiety. Her
sensibility was habitually of the acutest sort, and the qualities of
Emily were such as powerfully to fix her affection. She loved her like a
mother. Upon the present occasion, every sound, every motion, made her
tremble. Doctor Wilson had introduced another nurse, in consideration of
the incessant fatigue Mrs. Hammond had undergone; and he endeavoured, by
representations, and even by authority, to compel her to quit the
apartment of the patient. But she was uncontrollable; and he at length
found that he should probably do her more injury, by the violence that
would be necessary to separate her from the suffering innocent, than by
allowing her to follow her inclination. Her eye was a thousand times
turned, with the most eager curiosity, upon the countenance of Doctor
Wilson, without her daring to breathe a question respecting his opinion,
lest he should answer her by a communication of the most fatal tidings.
In the mean time she listened with the deepest attention to every thing
that dropped either from the physician or the nurse, hoping to