Treverton's brain. She rolled her head restlessly from side to side of the pillow--repeated vacantly a few lines from one of the old play-books which had been removed from her bed--and suddenly held out the pen to the servant, with a theatrical wave of the hand, and a glance upward at an imaginary gallery of spectators.
"Write!" she cried, with an awful mimicry of her old stage voice. "Write!" And the weak hand was waved again with a forlorn, feeble imitation of the old stage gesture.
Closing her fingers mechanically on the pen that was thrust between them, Sarah, with her eyes still expressing the superstitious terror which her mistress's words had aroused, waited for the next command. Some minutes elapsed before Mrs. Treverton spoke again. She still retained her senses sufficiently to be vaguely conscious of the effect which the medicine was producing on her, and to be desirous of combating its further progress before it succeeded in utterly confusing her ideas. She asked first for the smelling-bottle, next for some Eau de Cologne.
This last, poured onto her handkerchief and applied to her forehead, seemed to prove successful in partially clearing her faculties. Her eyes recovered their steady look of intelligence; and, when she again addressed her maid, reiterating the word "Write," she was able to enforce the direction by beginning immediately to dictate in quiet, deliberate, determined tones. Sarah's tears fell fast; her lips murmured fragments of sentences in which entreaties, expressions of penitence, and exclamations of fear were all strangely mingled together; but she wrote on submissively, in wavering lines, until she had nearly filled the first two sides of the note-paper. Then Mrs. Treverton paused, looked the writing over, and, taking the pen, signed her name at the end of it. With this effort, her powers of resistance to the exciting effect of the medicine seemed to fail her again. The deep flush began to tinge her cheeks once more, and she spoke hurriedly and unsteadily when she handed the pen back to her maid.
"Sign!" she cried, beating her hand feebly on the bedclothes. "Sign 'Sarah Leeson, witness.' No!--write 'Accomplice.' Take your share of it; I won't have it shifted on me. Sign, I insist on it! Sign as I tell you."
Sarah obeyed; and Mrs. Treverton taking the paper from her, pointed to it solemnly, with a return of the stage gesture which had escaped her a little while back.
"You will give this to your master," she said, "when I am dead; and you will answer any questions he puts to you as truly as if you were before the judgment-seat."
Clasping her hands fast together, Sarah regarded her mistress, for the first time, with steady eyes, and spoke to her for the first time in steady tones.
"If I only knew that I was fit to die," she said, "oh, how gladly I would change places with you!"
"Promise me that you will give the paper to your master," repeated Mrs. Treverton. "Promise--no! I won't trust your promise--I'll have your oath. Get the Bible--the Bible the clergyman used when he was here this morning. Get it, or I shall not rest in my grave. Get it, or I will come to you from the other world."
The mistress laughed as she reiterated that threat. The maid shuddered, as she obeyed the command which it was designed to impress on her.
"Yes, yes--the Bible the clergyman used," continued Mrs. Treverton, vacantly, after the book had been produced. "The clergyman--a poor weak man--I frightened him, Sarah. He said, 'Are you at peace with all the world?' and I said, 'All but one.' You know who."
"The Captain's brother? Oh, don't die at enmity with anybody. Don't die at enmity even with him," pleaded Sarah.
"The clergyman said so too," murmured Mrs. Treverton, her eyes beginning to wander childishly round the room, her tones growing suddenly lower and more confused. "'You must forgive him,' the clergyman said. And I said, 'No, I forgive all the world, but not my husband's brother.' The clergyman got up from the bedside, frightened, Sarah. He talked about praying for me, and coming back. Will he come back?"
"Yes, yes," answered Sarah. "He is a good man--he will come back--and oh! tell him that you forgive the Captain's brother! Those vile words he spoke of you when you were married will come home to him some day. Forgive him--forgive him before you die!"
Saying those words, she attempted to remove the Bible softly out of her mistress's sight. The action attracted Mrs. Treverton's attention, and roused her sinking faculties into observation of present things.
"Stop!" she cried, with a gleam of the old resolution flashing once more over the dying dimness of her eyes. She caught at Sarah's hand with a great effort, placed it on the Bible, and held it there. Her other hand wandered a little over the bed-clothes, until it encountered the written paper addressed to her husband. Her fingers closed on it, and a sigh of relief escaped her lips.
"Ah!" she said, "I know what I wanted the Bible for. I'm dying with all my senses about me, Sarah; you can't deceive me even yet." She stopped again, smiled a little, whispered to herself rapidly, "Wait, wait, wait!" then added aloud, with the old stage voice and the old stage gesture: "No! I won't trust you on your promise. I'll have your oath. Kneel down. These are my last words in this world--disobey them if you dare!"
Sarah dropped on her knees by the bed. The breeze outside, strengthening just then with the slow advance of the morning, parted the window-curtains a little, and wafted a breath of its sweet fragrance joyously into the sick room. The heavy beating hum of the distant surf came in at the same time, and poured out its unresting music in louder strains. Then the window-curtains fell to again heavily, the wavering flame of the candle grew steady once more, and the awful silence in the room sank deeper than ever.
"Swear!" said Mrs. Treverton. Her voice failed her when she had pronounced that one word. She struggled a little, recovered the power of utterance, and went on: "Swear that you will not destroy this paper after I am dead."
Even while she pronounced these solemn words, even at that last struggle for life and strength, the ineradicable theatrical instinct showed, with a fearful inappropriateness, how firmly it kept its place in her mind. Sarah felt the cold hand that was still laid on hers lifted for a moment--saw it waving gracefully toward her--felt it descend again, and clasp her own hand with a trembling, impatient pressure. At that final appeal, she answered faintly,
"I swear it."
"Swear that you will not take this paper away with you, if you leave the house, after I am dead."
Again Sarah paused before she answered--again the trembling pressure made itself felt on her hand, but more weakly this time--and again the words dropped affrightedly from her lips-- "I swear it."
"Swear!" Mrs. Treverton began for the third time. Her voice failed her once more; and she struggled vainly to regain the command over it.
Sarah looked up, and saw signs of convulsion beginning to disfigure the white face--saw the fingers of the white, delicate hand getting crooked as they reached over toward the table on which the medicine-bottles were placed.
"You drank it all," she cried, starting to her feet, as she comprehended the meaning of that gesture. "Mistress, dear mistress, you drank it all--there is nothing but the opiate left. Let me go--let me go and call--"
A look from Mrs. Treverton stopped her before she could utter another word. The lips of the dying woman were moving rapidly. Sarah put her ear close to them. At first she heard nothing but panting, quick-drawn breaths--then a few broken words mingled confusedly with them:
"I hav'n't done--you must swear--close, close, come close--a third thing--your master--swear to give it--"
The last words died away very softly. The lips that had been forming them so laboriously parted on a sudden and closed again no more. Sarah sprang to the door, opened it, and called into the passage for help; then ran back to the bedside, caught up the sheet of note-paper on which she had written from her mistress's dictation, and hid it in her bosom.