Page:Ethel Churchill 2.pdf/314

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312
ETHEL CHURCHILL.

not, is too much to bear!" and again a violent burst of weeping supplied the place of words.

An hour elapsed, and the attendants returned, but Lady Marchmont again dismissed them: that night she had resolved to watch beside the dead. It is well that the body sometimes sinks beneath the mind; Henrietta could not have borne such intense misery, but she grew faint. For nearly two days she had taken neither food nor rest, and even the relief of tears had been denied to her uncertain and feverish suspense. When the attendants came in the morning, they found her, her long black hair wet with tears, her cheek burning, but asleep beside the corpse. It was the heavy worn out slumber of exhaustion.