st time, how condemned criminals
feel--well, strong, yet dying! I knew how Walter La Vigne, the
self-doomed, had felt, and some passages of Madame Roland's appeal rose
visibly before me, as if written on the air rather than in my memory. I
had read the book at Beauseincourt, and it had powerfully impressed me;
and this, I remember, was the passage that swept across my brain:

"And thou whom I dare not name, wouldst thou mourn to see me preceding
thee to a place where we can love one another without wrong--where
nothing will prevent our union--where all pernicious prejudices, all
arbitrary exclusions, all hateful passions, and all tyranny, are silent?
I shall wait for thee, then, and rest!"

So centred were my dying thoughts on Wentworth--so calmly did I await
the great change that men call sudden death!

All this time--a time much briefer than that I have taken in recounting
my sensations--the glorious summer's sun, the sun of morning, was
bathing the sea; the ship, with beauty, and a soft, fresh breeze, was
fanning every pallid brow with a caressing, silken wing, that seemed to
mock its wretchedness.

I thought not once of Christian Garth. I had ceased to strain my eyes
for a distant sail, to seek to compromise with my fate or make
conditions with my Creator. Dunmore was forgotten. I was composed to
die--not resigned. These things are different; a bitter patience
possessed me that I felt would sustain me to the end, but I was not
satisfied that my doom was just or opportune.

"Farewell, sweet, young, vigorous life!" I moaned aloud. "Farewell,
Miriam! It will not be thou, but a phantom, that shall arise from dead
ashes! Farewell, dear hand, that hast served me long and well!" and I
kissed my own right hand. I had not known until that moment how truly I
loved myself. "Sister, lover, farewell! Mother, father, receive me!
Gentle Constance, reach forth thy guiding hand and lead me to my
parents! Wentworth, remember me! Saviour, my soul is thine!"

I bowed my head. I had no more to say. Unwilling I was to die--afraid I
was not; for, as I sat there, my whole life swept before me, as it is
said to do before the eyes of the drowning, and rapidly as one may sweep
the gamut on a piano with one introverted finger, and I saw myself as
though I had been another. I had done nothing to make me afraid to meet
my God; so, with closed eyes, I lingered in the shadow, conscious of
nothing save exceeding calm, when the grasp of my gen