It was one of those short ages of almost insupportable
suspense, when the mind, wound up to the keenest susceptibility of
endurance, seems vibrating on the verge of annihilation,--as if the next
pulse would snap its connection with the world for ever.
"Lady," the pilgrim answered, in a low sepulchral tone, "it is a bequest
from thy husband. It was his wife's last pledge--a seal of unchanging
fidelity. He bade me seek his dame, and say, 'His last sigh was to
her--his last wish to heaven.'"
Lady Mabel listened--every tone sunk like a barbed arrow to her heart.
The voice resembled not that of her deceased husband, yet such was the
deceptive influence arising from the painful irritation which her
spirits had undergone, that, if reason had not forbidden, her fancy
would have invested it with supernatural attributes--listening to it as
though it were a voice from the tomb.
"For the love I bore and yet bear to his most honoured name, tell me--I
conjure thee, tell me--his earthly resting-place. My last pilgrimage
shall be thither. I will enshrine his hallowed relics, and they shall be
a pledge of our union where we shall no more part.
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