Charley shrank with a painful susceptibility from the sight of everybody he knew. Without any of that mocking garniture of flowers which has become a matter of fashion and vanity, without any indifferent retinue, we two stood by the grave, the young brother with a heart-breaking control of grief, and{137} I with all the reverence of a pity scarcely less heart-rending. When I lifted my eyes from the “deep-delved” bed of utter silence and quiet, I thought I saw her standing by the edge of it, wringing her hands. The sound of a stifled sob from Charley called my attention away for a moment, and when I looked again she was gone. The face—the gesture was like Charlotte. It is impossible for me to describe the mingled tenderness and terror with which I perceived this—as if it might have been Charlotte herself in the spirit who had come forth in sheer longing to her brother’s grave.
{135}
{136}
{137}
“Did you see that lady?” I asked Charley, as we went home.
“What lady?” he said fretfully. He was irritable with grief, and misery, and shame; for he had never been able to get over this accessory of the terrible family misfortune, and his mind, poor fellow, was distracted with thinking what to do, and{138} how to manage the complicated business which had come into his hands. Then he begged my pardon piteously. “I don’t know what I’m doing. To think yon was Colin, and that’s all over with him—him that had more head than us all put together; and if he had only held his hand might have put all right. I would have set my strength to his,” cried the young fellow, unable to restrain himself, “shoulder to shoulder; and we would have redeemed everything.” Then, after a pause, during which he turned away his head to dash off the hot, quick gathering tears, “Did you say there was a lady? I took no notice. It would be his wife.”
{138}
I did not say anything more; but I knew very well it was not Colin’s wife. Who was it? or was it nothing more than a delusion, the offspring of my own overwrought and excited brain?
In a few days after I went to the railway with them to see them go away. Mr.{139} Campbell had never mended more than he did the first night. His hand and one side were almost without power, and
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