The Mysteries of the Court of London, Vol. 7 (Classic Reprint) - Softcover

Excerpt from The Mysteries of the Court of London, Vol. 7

American river. A pleasure-vessel, having a nu merous party on board, amongst whom were several gentlemen attached to the English Embassy in the United States, had been upset in a sudden squall and every soul had perished. The paragraph gave the names of some of the principal personages who had thus met their death: and amongst those names was that of Bertram Vivian.

Captain Lacey was reading an Oxford paper one morning after breakfast, when this paragraph met his eyes; and the sudden ejaculation which burst from his lips, caused Elisa to question him with trembling anxiety as to the source of his emotions. Iie dared not conceal the fact from her: but ere he showed her the paragragh itself, he gradually broke the fatal truth. Even before he had finished, poor Elisa comprehended it all! N ot a tear escaped her eyes - no word fell from her lips: but pale as marble, she sat the image of dull, deep, blank despair. Her father caught her in his arms: then the dood-gates of her inefi'able affliction were Opened - and she wept long, bit terly, agonizingly! Oh, for the hopes which that heart had cherished, to be thus blighted all in a moment - Oh, for the fabric of expectant bliss which her faithful and trusting soul had built up, to be thus shattered in an instant! It was too cruel. Captain Lacey, with the tears running down his wrinkled cheeks, besought her to calm her sorrow for his sake: but the entreaty was a long time vain. Hours passed cro Eliza could even bring herself to think deliberately upon this fearful loss: days passed ere she could awaken herself to a sense of the necessity of a pious and holy resignation to the will of heaven. And during these days, it appeared to her as if it were all a dream, and that her brain was only morbidly reeling beneath the weight of some imagined calamity. In the night she would start up from a feverish and troubled sleep - wakened as if by the anguished voice of a drowning one thrilling on her ears, - and pressing her hands violently to her throbbing temples, she would ask herself if it could possibly be true. At length this dream-like state of being passed away, and left her to the astound ing sense of the awful reality. She prayed to heaven for strength to bear up against it: but there were times when she felt as if she were going mad. Then, passionately - Oh, how pas sionately, would she press Bertram's ring to her lips; and in this memento of his love in other and happier days, was her only consolation. Alas, how poor a one - and yet it was a solace, though feeble as the last thread which retains the invalid to existence in the depth of a malady when the crisis for best or worst is come!

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