I lingered behind, in order not to pass
them abruptly; presently, they turned away towards the house, and I saw
them no more. Yet that frail and bending form, as I too soon afterwards
learned--that form, which I did not recognise--which, by a sort of
fatality, I saw only in a glimpse, and yet for the last time on
earth,--that form--was the wreck of Lucy D----!
"Unconscious of this event in my destiny, I left that neighbourhood, and
settled for some weeks on the borders of the Lake Keswick. There, one
evening, a letter, re-directed to me from London, reached me. The
hand-writing was that of Lucy; but the trembling and slurred characters,
so different from that graceful ease which was wont to characterize all
she did, filled me, even at the first glance, with alarm. This is the
letter--read it--you will know, then, what I have lost:--
"'I write to you, my dear, my unforgotten ----, the last letter this
hand will ever trace. Till now, it would have been a crime to write to
you; perhaps it is so still--but dying as I am, and divorced from all
earthly thoughts and remembrances, save yours, I feel that I cannot
quite collect my mind for the last hour until I have given you the
blessing of one whom you loved once; and when that blessing is given, I
think I can turn away from your image, and sever willingly the last tie
that binds me to earth.
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