s she
sunk into silence; her head lay heavily upon me; I only knew that she lived
by her irregular breathing and frequent sighs. For a moment I resolved to
stop, and, opposing the back of the cabriolet to the force of the tempest,
to expect morning as well as I might. But the wind was bleak and piercing,
while the occasional shudderings of my poor Idris, and the intense cold I
felt myself, demonstrated that this would be a dangerous experiment. At
length methought she slept--fatal sleep, induced by frost: at this moment
I saw the heavy outline of a cottage traced on the dark horizon close to
us: "Dearest love," I said, "support yourself but one moment, and we shall
have shelter; let us stop here, that I may open the door of this blessed
dwelling."
As I spoke, my heart was transported, and my senses swam with excessive
delight and thankfulness; I placed the head of Idris against the carriage,
and, leaping out, scrambled through the snow to the cottage, whose door was
open. I had apparatus about me for procuring light, and that shewed me a
comfortable room, with a pile of wood in one corner, and no appearance of
disorder, except that, the door having been left partly open, the snow,
drifting in, had blocked up the threshold. I returned to the carriage, and
the sudden change from light to darkness at first blinded me. When I
recovered my sight--eternal God of this lawless world! O supreme Death! I
will not disturb thy silent reign, or mar my tale with fruitless
exclamations of horror--I saw Idris, who had fallen from the seat to the
bottom of the carriage; her head, its long hair pendent, with one arm, hung
over the side.--Struck by a spasm of horror, I lifted her up; her heart
was pulseless, her faded lips unfanned by the slightest breath.
I carried her into the cottage; I placed her on the bed. Lighting a fire, I
chafed her stiffening limbs; for two long hours I sought to restore
departed life; and, when hope was as dead as my beloved, I closed with
trembling hands her glazed eyes. I did not doubt what I should now do. In
the confusion attendant on my illness, the task of interring our darling
Alfred had devolved on his grandmother, the Ex-Queen, and she, true to her
ruling passion, had caused him to be carried to Windsor, and buried in the
family vault, in St. George's Chapel. I must proceed to Windsor, to calm
the anxiety of Clara, who would wait anxiously for us--yet I would fain
spare her the heart-breaking spectac
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