Chapter 24

THE HOUSE OF MOURNING.

Zillah had scarcely fallen asleep when a shrill cry roused her. She started up. Hilda stood by her side with wild excitement in her usually impassive face. A cold thrill ran through Zillah's frame. To see Hilda in any excitement was an unknown thing to her; but now this excitement was not concealed.

"Oh, my darling! my darling!" she cried.

"What? what?" Zillah almost screamed. "What is it? What has happened?" Fear told her. She knew what had happened. One thing, and one only, could account for this.

"He's gone! It's over! He's gone! He's gone! Oh, darling! How can I tell it? And so sudden! Oh, calm yourself!" And Hilda flung her arms about Zillah, and groaned.

Zillah's heart seemed to stand still. She flung off Hilda's arms, she tore herself away, and rushed to the Earl's room. Such a sudden thing as this--could it be? Gone! And it was only a few moments since she had seen his last glance, and heard his last words.

Yes; it was indeed so. There, as she entered that room, where now the rays of morning entered, she saw the form of her friend--that friend whom she called father, and loved as such. But the white face was no longer turned to greet her; the eyes did not seek hers, nor could that cold hand ever again return the pressure of hers. White as marble was that face now, still and set in the fixedness of death; cold as marble was now that hand which hers clasped in that first frenzy of grief and horror; cold as marble and as lifeless. Never again--never again might she hold commune with the friend who now was numbered with the dead.

She sat in that room stricken into dumbness by the shock of this sudden calamity. Time passed. The awful news flashed through the house. The servants heard it, and came silent and awe-struck to the room; but when they saw the white face, and the mourner by the bedside, they stood still, nor did they dare to cross the threshold. Suddenly, while the little group of servants stood there in that doorway, with the reverence which is always felt for death and for sorrow, there came one who forced her way through them and passed into the room. This one bore on her face the expression of a mightier grief than that which could be felt by any others--a grief unspeakable--beyond words, and beyond thought. White-haired, and with a face which now seemed turned to stone in the fixedness of its great agony, this figure tottered rather than walked into the room. There was no longer any self-restraint in this woman, who for years had lived under a self-restraint that never relaxed; there was no thought as to those who might see or hear; there was nothing but the utter abandonment of perfect grief--of grief which had reached its height and could know nothing more; there was nothing less than despair itself--that despair which arises when all is lost--as this woman flung herself past Zillah, as though she had a grief superior to Zillah's, and a right to pass even her in the terrible precedence of sorrow. It was thus that Mrs. Hart came before the presence of the dead and flung herself upon the inanimate corpse, and wound her thin arms around that clay from which the soul had departed, and pressed her wan lips upon the cold brow from which the immortal dweller had passed away to its immortality.

In the depths of her own grief Zillah was roused by a cry which expressed a deeper grief than hers--a cry of agony--a cry of despair:

"Oh, my God! Oh, God of mercy! Dead! What? dead! Dead--and no explanation--no forgiveness!"

And Mrs. Hart fell down lifeless over the form of the dead.

Zillah rose with a wonder in her soul which alleviated the sorrow of bereavement. What was this? What did it mean?

"Explanation!" "Forgiveness!" What words were these? His housekeeper!--could she be any thing else? What had she done which required this lamentation? What was the Earl to her, that his death should cause such despair?

But amidst such thoughts Zillah was still considerate about this stricken one, and she called the servants, and they bore her away to her own room. This grief, from whatever cause it may have arisen, was too much for Mrs. Hart. Before this she had been prostrated. She now lost all consciousness, and lay in a stupor from which she could not be aroused.

The wondering questions which had arisen in Zillah's mind troubled her and puzzled her at first; but gradually she thought that she could answer them. Mrs. Hart, she thought, was wonderfully attached to the Earl. She had committed some imaginary delinquency in her management of the household, which, in her weak and semi-delirious state, was weighing upon her spirits. When she found that he was dead, the shock was great to one in her weak state, and she had only thought of some confession which she had wished to make to him.

When the doctor came that day he found Zillah still sitting there, holding the hand of the dead. Hilda came to tell all that she knew.

"About half an hour after Zillah left," she said, "I was sitting by the window, looking out to see the rising sun. Suddenly the Earl gave a sudden start, and sat upright in bed. I rushed over to him. He fell back. I chafed his hands and feet. I could not think, at first, that it was any thing more than a fainting fit. The truth gradually came to me. He was dead. An awful horror rushed over me. I fled from the room to Mrs. Molyneux, and roused her from sleep. She sprang up and hurried to the Earl. She knows the rest."

Such was Hilda's account.

As for the doctor, he could easily account for the sudden death. It was _mind_. His heart had been affected, and he had died from a sudden spasm. It was only through the care of Miss Krieff that the Earl had lived so long.

But so great was Hilda's distress that Zillah had to devote herself to the task of soothing her.