But when the fatal moment did at last arrive, the event in no manner
realized the picture of his imagination. Time was not given to him to
speak those solemn preliminary words by which he had intended to prepare
the victim for her deathblow. His presence there, and his presence alone,
were all sufficient to prepare her for some calamity.
"You have come back to me, and without him!" she exclaimed. "Tell me what
has happened; tell me at once."
He had no time to defer the stroke. His face told her so much. In a few
moments--before his broken words could shape themselves into
coherence--she knew all.
There are some things that can never be forgotten. Never, to his dying
day, can Gilbert Fenton forget the quiet agony he had to witness then.
She was very ill for a long time after that day--in danger of death. All
that she had suffered during her confinement at Wyncomb seemed to fall
upon her now with a double weight. Only the supreme devotion of those who
cared for her could have carried her through that weary time; but the day
did at last come when the peril was pronounced a thing of the past, and
the feeble submissive patient might be carried away from the Grange--from
the scene of her brief married life and of her bitter widowhood.
She went with Ellen Whitelaw to Ventnor.
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