With beating heart he walked softly toward the room where, as on an
altar, lay the vanishing form of his master, like the fuel in whose
dying flame was offered the late and ill-nurtured sacrifice of his
spirit.
As he went through the last corridor leading thither, Mrs. Catanach,
type and embodiment of the horrors that haunt the dignity of death,
came walking toward him like one at home, her great round body lighty
upborne on her soft foot. It was no time to challenge her presence,
and yielding her the half of the narrow way he passed without a
greeting. She dropped him a courtesy with an up-look and again a
veiling of her wicked eyes.
The marquis would not have the doctors come near him, and when Malcolm
entered there was no one in the room but Mrs. Courthope. The shadow
had crept far along the dial. His face had grown ghastly, the skin had
sunk to the bones, and his eyes stood out as if from much staring into
the dark. They rested very mournfully on Malcolm for a few moments,
and then closed softly.
"Is she come yet?" he murmured, opening them wide with sudden stare.
"No, my lord."
The lids fell again, softly, slowly.
"Be good to her, Malcolm," he murmured.
"I wull, my lord," said Malcolm solemnly.
Then the eyes opened and looked at him: something grew in them, a
light as of love, and drew up after it a tear; but the lips said
nothing. The eyelids fell again, and in a minute more Malcolm knew by
his breathing that he slept.
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