In the event of the marriage of John and Margaret
proving issueless, the estates and title went to the distant relative
named in the will; and her son, deprived of reason by the calamities in
which her arts had involved him, was by them also deprived of the wealth
and rank to which they were meant to raise him, and reduced to the small
pension obtained by his former services,--the poverty of the King, then
himself a pensioner of Lewis XIV., forbidding the possibility of added
remuneration. When the minister heard to the last the terrible
confession of the dying penitent, in the awful language ascribed to
Bishop Burnet when consulted by another criminal,--he bid her “almost
despair,” and departed. * * * * * * *

“Elinor has retired, with the helpless object of her unfading love and
unceasing care, to her cottage in Yorkshire. There, in the language of
that divine and blind old man, the fame of whose poetry has not yet
reached this country, it is

    “Her delight to see him sitting in the house,”

and watch, like the father of the Jewish champion, the growth of that
“God-given strength,” that intellectual power, which, unlike Samson’s,
will never return. “After an interval of two years, during which she had expended a large
part of the capital of her fortune in obtaining the first medical advice
for the patient, and “suffered many things of many physicians,” she gave
up all hope,--and, reflecting that the interest of her fortune thus
diminished would be but sufficient to procure the comforts of life for
herself and him whom she has resolved never to forsake, she sat down in
patient misery with her melancholy companion, and added one more to the
many proofs of woman’s heart, “unwearied in well-doing,” without the
intoxication of passion, the excitement of applause, or even the
gratitude of the unconscious object. “Were this a life of calm privation, and pulseless apathy, her efforts
would scarce have merit, and her sufferings hardly demand compassion;
but it is one of pain incessant and immitigable. The first-born of her
heart lies dead within it; but that heart is still alive with all its
keenest sensibilities, its most vivid hopes, and its most exquisite
sense of grief. * * * * * * *

“She sits beside him all day--she watches that eye whose light was life,
and sees it fixed on her in glassy and unmeaning complacency--she dreams
of that smile which burst on her soul like the morning sun over a
landscape in spring, and sees that smile of vacancy which tries to
convey satisfaction, but cannot give it the language of expression. Averting her head, she thinks of other days. A vision passes before
her.--Lovely and glorious things, the hues of whose colouring are not of
this world, and whose web is too fine to be woven in the loom of
life,--rise to her eye like the illusions of enchantment. A strain of
rich remembered music floats in her hearing--she dreams of the hero, the
lover, the beloved,--him in whom were united all that could dazzle the
eye, inebriate the imagination, and melt the heart. She sees him as he
first appeared to her,--and the mirage of the desert present not a
vision more delicious and deceptive--she bends to drink of that false
fountain, and the stream disappears--she starts from her reverie, and
hears the weak laugh of the sufferer, as he moves a little water in a
shell, and imagines he sees the ocean in a storm! * * * * * * * * *

“She has one consolation. When a short interval of recollection
returns,--when his speech becomes articulate,--he utters _her_ name, not
that of Margaret, and a beam of early hope dances on her heart as she
hears it, but fades away as fast as the rare and wandering ray of
intellect from the lost mind of the sufferer! * * * * * *

“Unceasingly attentive to his health and his comforts, she walked out
with him every evening, but led him through the most sequestered paths,
to avoid those whose mockful persecution, or whose vacant pity, might be
equally torturing to her feelings, or harassing to her still gentle and
smiling companion. “It was at this period,” said the stranger to Aliaga, “I first became
acquainted with---- I mean--at this time a stranger, who had taken up
his abode near the hamlet where Elinor resided, was seen to watch the
two figures as they passed slowly on their retired walk. Evening after
evening he watched them. He knew the history of these two unhappy
beings, and prepared himself to take advantage of it. It was impossible,
considering their secluded mode of existence, to obtain an introduction. He tried to recommend himself by his occasional attentions to the
invalid--he sometimes picked up the flowers that an unconscious hand
flung into the stream, and listened, with a gracious smile, to the
indistinct sounds in which the sufferer, who still retained all the
graciousness of his perished mind, attempted to thank him. “Elinor felt grateful for these occasional attentions; but she was
somewhat alarmed at the assiduity with which the stranger attended their
melancholy walk every evening,--and, whether encouraged, neglected, or
even repelled, still found the means of insinuating himself into
companionship. Even the mournful dignity of Elinor’s demeanour,--her
deep dejection,--her bows or brief replies,--were unavailing against the
gentle but indefatigable importunity of the intruder. “By degrees he ventured to speak to her of her misfortunes,--and that
topic is a sure key to the confidence of the unhappy. Elinor began to
listen to him;--and, though somewhat amazed at the knowledge he
displayed of every circumstance of her life, she could not but feel
soothed by the tone of sympathy in which he spoke, and excited by the
mysterious hints of hope which he sometimes suffered to escape him as if
involuntarily. It was observed soon by the inmates of the hamlet, whom
idleness and the want of any object of excitement had made curious, that
Elinor and the stranger were inseparable in their evening walks. * * * *
* * *

“It was about a fortnight after this observation was first made, that
Elinor, unattended, drenched with rain, and her head uncovered, loudly
and eagerly demanded admittance, at a late hour, at the house of a
neighbouring clergyman. She was admitted,--and the surprise of her
reverend host at this visit, equally unseasonable and unexpected, was
exchanged for a deeper feeling of wonder and terror as she related the
cause of it. He at first imagined (knowing her unhappy situation) that
the constant presence of an insane person might have a contagious effect
on the intellects of one so perseveringly exposed to that presence. “As Elinor, however, proceeded to disclose the awful proposal, and the
scarcely less awful name of the unholy intruder, the clergyman betrayed
considerable emotion; and, after a long pause, desired permission to
accompany her on their next meeting. This was to be the following
evening, for the stranger was unremitting in his attendance on her
lonely walks.