s arm, as if for support, trembling in every
limb.
"Good God! What have you done, Sherbrooke?" exclaimed his friend.
"I have killed her! I have killed her!" cried Lord Sherbrooke,
gasping for breath--"I have killed the dear unfortunate girl!" and
letting go Wilton's arm, he rushed forward at once into the midst of
the other party, exclaiming, "Stand back! Let me forward! She is my
wife! Stand out of my way! How, in the name of Heaven, did she--"
He left off, without concluding; and nobody answered. But the tone of
bitter grief and agony in which Lord Sherbrooke spoke was not to be
mistaken: there was in it the overpowering energy of passionate
grief; and everybody made way for him. In a moment he bad snatched
the form of the unhappy lady from the man who held her in his arms,
and supporting her himself, partly on his knee, partly on his bosom,
he kissed her again and again vehemently, eagerly, we may almost say
frantically, exclaiming, "And I have killed thee, my Caroline! I
have killed thee, my beloved, my wife, my own dear wife! I have
killed thee, noble, and true, and kind! Oh, open your eyes, dear
one, open your eyes and gaze upon me for a minute! She is living, she
is living!" he added wildly--"she does open her eyes!--Quick, some
one call a surgeon!--A hundred guineas to the first who brings me a
surgeon!--God of Heaven! how has this happened?--Oh yes, she is
living, she is reviving!--Wilton, for pity's sake, for mercy's sake,
help me!"
Wilton Brown had followed Lord Sherbrooke rapidly; for a sudden
apprehension had crossed his mind immediately the words were
pronounced, "He has shot the lady," lest by some accident Lady Laura
had fallen into the hands of the people who were approaching, and
that she it was who had been wounded or killed by the rash act of his
friend. The moment he came up, however, he perceived that the lady's
face was unknown to him, and he saw also that the men who stood
round, deprived of all power and activity by a horrible event, which
they only vaguely comprehended, were anything but the persons he had
expected to see. They seemed to be almost all common sailors; and
though they were in general evidently Englishmen, they were habited
more in the fashion of the Dutch seamen of that day. They were well
armed, it is true, but still they bore not the slightest appearance
of being connected with Sir John Fenwick and the party to which lie
was attached; and the horror and consternation which seemed to have
taken possession of t