Letter xcvi.

_Leonora to her mother._

L---- Castle.

Dear Mother,

This moment an express from General B----. Mr L---- is dangerously ill at Yarmouth--a fever brought on by the agitation of his mind. How unjust I have been! Forget all I said in my last. I write in the utmost haste--just setting out for Yarmouth. I hope to be there to-morrow.

Your affectionate Leonora L----.

I open this to enclose the general's letter, which will explain everything.

Letter xcvij.

_General B---- to the Duchess of ----._

Yarmouth.

My dear Madam,

Your grace, I find, is apprised of Lady Leonora L----'s journey hither: I fear that you rely upon my prudence for preventing her exposing herself to the danger of catching this dreadful fever. But that has been beyond my power. Her ladyship arrived late last night. I had foreseen the probability of her coming, but not the possibility of her coming so soon. I had taken no precautions, and she was in the house and upon the stairs in an instant. No entreaties, no arguments could stop her; I assured her that Mr L----'s fever was pronounced by all the physicians to be of the most infectious kind. Dr ***** joined me in representing that she would expose her life to almost certain danger if she persisted in her determination to see her husband; but she pressed forward, regardless of all that could be said. To the physicians she made no answer; to me she replied, "You are Mr L----'s friend, but I am his wife: you have not feared to hazard your life for him, and do you think I can hesitate?" I urged that there was no necessity for more than one person's running this hazard; and that since it had fallen to my lot to be with my friend when he was first taken ill----She interrupted me--"Is not this taking a cruel advantage of me, general? You know that I, too, would have been with Mr L---- if--if it had been possible." Her manner, her pathetic emphasis, and the force of her implied meaning, struck me so much, that I was silent, and suffered her to pass on; but again the idea of her danger rushing upon my mind, I sprang before her to the door of Mr L----'s apartment, and opposed her entrance. "Then, general," said she calmly, "perhaps you mistake me--perhaps you have heard repeated some unguarded words of mine in the moment of indignation . . . unjust . . . you best know how unjust indignation!--and you infer from these that my affection for my husband is extinguished. I deserve this--but do not punish me too severely."

I still kept my hand upon the lock of the door, expostulating with Lady Leonora in your grace's name, and in Mr L----'s assuring her that if he were conscious of what was passing, and able to speak, he would order me to prevent her seeing him in his present situation.

"And you, too, general!" said she, bursting into tears: "I thought you were my friend--would you prevent me from seeing him? And is not he conscious of what is passing? And is not he able to speak? Sir, I must be admitted! You have done your duty--now let me do mine. Consider, my right is superior to yours. No power on earth should or can prevent a wife from seeing her husband when he is . . . Dear, dear general!" said she, clasping her raised hands, and falling suddenly at my feet, "let me see him but for one minute, and I will be grateful to you for ever!"

I could resist no longer--I tremble for the consequences. I know your grace sufficiently to be aware that you ought to be told the whole truth. I have but little hopes of my poor friend's life.

With much respect, Your grace's faithful servant, J. B.

Letter xcviij.

_Olivia to Mr L----._

Richmond.

A mist hung over my eyes, and "my ears with hollow murmurs rung," when the dreadful tidings of your alarming illness were announced by your cruel messenger. My dearest L----! why does inexorable destiny doom me to be absent from you at such a crisis? Oh! this fatal wound of mine! It would, I fear, certainly open again if I were to travel. So this corporeal being must be imprisoned here, while my anxious soul, my viewless spirit, hovers near you, longing to minister each tender consolation, each nameless comfort that love alone can, with fond prescience and magic speed, summon round the couch of pain.

"O that I had the wings of a dove, that I might fly to you!" Why must I resign the sweetly-painful task of soothing you in the hour of sickness? And shall others, with officious zeal,

"Guess the faint wish, explain the asking eye"?

Alas! it must be so--even were I to fly to him, my sensibility could not support the scene. To behold him stretched on the bed of disease--perhaps of death--would be agony past endurance. Let firmer nerves than Olivia's, and hearts more callous, assume the offices from which they shrink not. 'Tis the fate, the hard fate of all endued with exquisite sensibility, to be palsied by the excess of their feelings, and to become imbecile at the moment their exertions are most necessary.

Your too tenderly sympathizing Olivia.