On the travellers' arrival at Morewick, the orders of its present temporary master were strictly obeyed. Duke Wharton was laid in an airy, but remote chamber; and a surgeon, with every proper assistant, in attendance day and night. The Duke's shoulder was set, and his wound probed. The danger of the latter arose rather from the nature of the weapon by which it was inflicted, than from its depth or direction; but his life hung on the termination of a fever, which, though it did not at first amount to absolute delirium, was continually hovering on its verge.

For swine time he remained in a strange dreamy sort of inanity, which threatened his wound with mortification. But no watching nor hopelessness, could weary the cares of Cornelia. And though she was not the only attendant on his comforts, in his most trance-like distractions, he had yet perception enough to appreciate the tenderness of her hand, when it placed his pillows; and the gentleness of her voice prevailed, when no other could induce him to obey the orders of his medical attendants.

Louis also hovered near; and the medicines passed through his hand to that of Cornelia, when the burning lip of Wharton turned from all other persuasions. As the fever gained ground, his delirium became absolute. Yet it was never violent, but rather uttered itself in low and half articulate murmurs. In its fits, he often muttered the names of de Montemar and Ripperda. When she first heard the latter, her eye instinctively turned upon her cousin, who sat behind the bed curtain; and such an expression of horror was then in his countenance, that it struck her with a nameless terror of some past or coming evil. Louis soon after quitted the room, and he did not return any more that day.

The next morning brought him intelligence that surprised, and increased the present agitated state of his mind. There was pleasure in it; but the accompanying circumstances were of such mingled nature, he could hardly trust his heart to say, "I am glad!"

This surprise was a letter from the Marquis Santa Cruz, dated from Harwich. It requested Louis to join him there without loss of time, to be the conductor of the Marchioness and Lady Marcella to the hospitable shores of Lindisfarne. The Marquis had a particular mission to the Spanish Embassador in London; therefore, could not himself proceed so far northward as the Holy Island, before he had seen that minister. Besides, his daughter's fatigues, from a very boisterous voyage, made his stay at Harwich a little excusable; and there he would remain until his friend should arrive, and relieve him of the care of the two dearest objects of his anxiety, his wife and her invalid child.

On Louis turning to the date of this letter, he found it had been written several days, and must have been unduly delayed in its progress. No time, therefore was to be lost in welcoming his best friends; and, above all, the friends of his father's memory, to the land which, he trusted, was now to be his undisturbed home. And, having dispatched a messenger to prepare his uncle at Lindisfarne for his speedy arrival with the illustrious Spaniards, before he communicated to Cornelia the necessity for his temporary absence, he begged an audience of the Duke's surgeon.

This gentleman answered his agitated inquiry with more truth than sympathy.

"Sir," said he, "if a material change does not take place in the course of eight and forty hours, he will not be alive the day after!"

"Then I must not hope to see him again, should I be absent three days."

"I fear not," replied the surgeon.

Louis left the room.

He passed along the silent galleries, for it was now a very late hour, to the chamber of his friend.

"Wharton!" cried he, as he stood alone by the side of the Duke's couch, and gazed, as he thought, for the last time on his face; "Is it thus we are to part?" He took the inanimate hand; and, wringing it between his, held it there for a long time in the agony of his mind.

"O blighted affection! Tenderness mourning that man is frail! Here stand, and feel that thine is the canker worm that eats into the heart!"

The unconscious violence with which Louis clasped the hand of him he once loved and trusted, roused the dormant faculties of Wharton to some perception. His eye opened; but it turned vacantly and without recognition on the anguished face of his friend; and, heavily sighing, he fell back on the pillow.

"Here, vanity of man, and pride of intellect, behold thyself!" cried the inward soul of Louis, smiting his breast. "Here is all that woman ever admired, or that man envied! All that betrayed him to dishonour! All that bound me to deplore him, and to love him to the end! Wharton,—farewell!"

Louis could not utter a dearer appellative, than the low breathing of that ever-beloved name; and, with a death-chill at his heart, he pressed the unconscious hand to his lips, and rushed from the room.

Cornelia met him in the anti-chamber. She observed his extraordinary agitation; and, without a preface, which he had not sufficient self-command even to attempt, he informed her of his summons to the south-east coast, and of the probable event before his return.

"Cornelia," said he, "to what a scene may I leave you! But should the last extremity come,—should he then be sensible, and he chance to name me,—tell him under whose roof he dies,—and he will then know he may die in peace!"

"Louis," returned she, "you do indeed leave me to an awful task! I cannot regard one you appear to love so much, with a common compassion. Trust me, and tell me who he is?"

"I dare not.—On his life, short as it may be, I dare not," repeated her cousin. "Too soon it may be revealed, and then you will respect my reasons. And, for his knowledge of where he is; only in the case of his naming me, with the anguish that is now wringing my heart for him,—only, in that case, say, his last friend was Louis de Montemar!"

"Your emotions are terrible!" cried Cornelia, clinging to her cousin's arm; "What do you leave me to suppose, by such inscrutable mystery? Oh, Louis, except when speaking of your father, I never saw you shaken thus!"

"On your bosom's peace, my sweet Cornelia!" replied he, "inquire no further. Should he be no more, preserve the sacred remains till I return. They at least, shall sleep with my ancestors.—There is no enmity in the grave."

The morning after that of Louis's departure for Harwich, the Duke awoke to a perfect perception of his state, his wounds, and his danger. He remembered every event which had brought him into that perilous condition. His secret missions from the Kings of Spain and of France, to examine into the aptness of the public mind in Scotland, and in the border counties of England, to receive a foreign army, headed by the exiled prince. To do this unsuspected, and to avoid the forfeiture of his head, should he be found in England after his attainder, he disguised himself as a German merchant at Hamburgh, where he engaged two resolute men of the country to be his servants. They served the seeming trader with sufficient fidelity during his Scottish progress. He came southward; and now he had to recall what terminated his first day's journey. He recollected being thrown from his restive horse in the storm and darkness of Wansbeck Fells; also, that the accident dislocated his shoulder; and that his two servants, by his own orders, had taken him into the hovel, whose sudden discovery in the lightning, had frightened his horse.—In attempting to set the dislocated limb, which he had also directed them to do, their awkwardness occasioned him so much pain, that he fainted under the unsuccessful operation. When he recovered from his swoon, which he did with an extraordinary sickness at the heart; he put his hand to his side, where the peculiar sensation was, and found it weltering in his blood. It was not needful for him to find no voice return an answer to his immediate call upon his servants. The previous silence, uninterrupted by any thing but the raging storm without, confirmed his suspicion that the villains had given him his death wound; and were fled with the booty. He, however, thrust the linen of his shirt into the wound; and lay half dead with pain and exhaustion, till all was lost in insensibility. He knew nothing from that hour, until he now opened his eyes from a refreshing sleep. He saw himself on a comfortable bed, instead of the wretched litter on which he had believed himself left to perish! He was then in the hands of some benevolent person!—But how brought, or where resident, he could not guess.

At this moment of conjecture Cornelia heard him move, and gently put aside the curtain. Her eyes met the surprised fixture of his.—But it was no longer with the glare of fever, with the wild flashes of delirium; the light of recovered reason was there, and the inquiring gaze of gratitude. If she had thought his face perfect in manly beauty, while it was insensible, or only moved by a distempered spirit; what were her impressions, when his intelligent mind was restored to all its powers, and it shone out in those eyes, and in that countenance?

Even her self-controuled spirit, trembled before the resistless influence; and with a failing voice, she answered his respectful demand of where he was.

"You are under the roof of a gentleman who is my kinsman, and who has left you under my care."

Wharton considered for a moment.—"his name, noble lady?"

"Your present critical state," replied she, "does not permit me to answer you that question."

An immediate apprehension that he was a prisoner, shot through the mind of the Duke.

"I am then in the house of an enemy!" cried he, starting on his arm; "and your benevolence, Madam, would spare me the truth!"

"No," answered Cornelia, astonished at the suspicion; or, rather, gazing on him with renewed anxiety, for fear his delirium was returning. "He is your friend—your anxious friend. And, while he enjoined me not to mention his name in your hearing; he likewise refused me, and all in this house, the knowledge of yours."

"That is sufficient!" replied Wharton, "Madam, whoever your friend may be, this caution does indeed manifest him to be mine. I am without guess on the subject; nor will I seek to penetrate what he wishes to conceal. But you may answer me, how I came under this generous care!"

Cornelia briefly related, (though without betraying whence she came, or whither she was going;) the events of the Moor.

"Then I am still in Northumberland?" replied Wharton. He paused, and added; "there are some names I would inquire after in this county, but—" and he paused again. "It is better I should not. My last hours shall not injure any man."

There were sensations within him, that made him murmur to himself the concluding sentence. And Cornelia, seeing, by the sudden lividness which overspread his so lately re-animated countenance, that some unhappy change was recurring; rose from her chair, and summoned his medical assistants.

They were closed up for nearly an hour, with their patient. At the door of the anti-room, Cornelia met them; and, with a dawning hope in her heart, to which his recovery to reason had given birth, she hastily inquired their opinion of the invalid.

"That he may last till to-morrow morning, but not beyond it," replied the superior surgeon.

She heard no more; though his colleagues spoke also, giving their various reasons for this judgement. She stood benumbed; but shewed no other sign of the blow on her heart, while bowing their heads, the party left her. She then walked steadily to her own chamber; and there, throwing herself on her knees before heaven, petitioned for its mercy to heal so prized a friend of her beloved cousin.

"Thy hand alone!" cried she, "and on that alone, I now confide!"

She was soon after summoned to the side of the dying stranger, by one of the female attendants who waited in his anti-room. He requested the lady he had seen, to have the goodness to grant him the use of pen and ink, and to allow him to see her once more. Cornelia took what he required, and hastened to his apartment.

He was propped up in the bed, by the attentive hands of Lorenzo; who remained, by his directions, after the entrance of Cornelia. The paleness of watching and anxiety was in her face. The flush of pain, mental and bodily, on Wharton's. She drew near him.

"Noble lady," said he, "your physicians are honest men. They have told me, my hours are numbered; and, that I have a short time in which to express my thanks to your humanity; and to make up my accounts with the world. Will you indulge me with the means?"

And he stretched his hands towards the writing materials. Cornelia relinquished them to his eager grasp; though, at the same time, she expressed her dread of the exertion increasing his danger.

"This done!" replied he, "an hour more or less, in arriving at the goal, is of no consequence.—Delay me, sweet lady," continued he, observing her reluctance; "and you may deprive me of the victor's crown!"

Cornelia gave him the pen; and bowing gratefully, he began to write. She moved to withdraw, but looking up with a beseeching eye, he entreated her, as well as Lorenzo, to remain, to bear witness that the papers he was writing were penned by his own hand.

She retook her place, and soon found her presence necessary; for he was often faint under his task; and, after taking a restorative from her hand, in spite of all her persuasions to the contrary, recommenced it.

As he closed one packet, to begin another, she laid her hand upon his arm. "For the sake of all you revere in earth and heaven, desist!" cried she, "this perseverance is suicide."

"No," replied he, "there is but one man in the world, who could act by me, as your kinsman has done! And this deed is my last act of duty to him and to myself."

Cornelia said no more; but submitted with an awful awaiting of the conclusion.

By the Duke's orders, Lorenzo sealed the first packet, and returned it into his hand. No one saw how he directed it. The second packet was then sealed, and superscribed, and both put into a cover. This was also sealed, and when directed by the Duke's hand, he put it into that of Cornelia. She glanced upon the superscription.

"To my benefactress. But not to be opened until I am dead."

She read it, and for the first time in his sight, her eyes gushed out with tears. The burning hand, which then gratefully pressed her's as he relinquished the packet, would be cold and motionless, when she should break that seal! Human nature, pity, admiration! all struck at once upon her heart, and she trembled, almost to sinking.

The Duke observed her emotion, and made a sign to Lorenzo to withdraw. Both his hands now clasped her's, as with his dying eyes he gazed on her.

"Lady," said he, "when you open that packet, you will know that he who you now honour with your pity, was a being to be condemned; but, he trusts, to be pardoned also! I am a man, and I erred; but I am a Christian, and have contrition. When you know me, remember me with one of those tears, and my conscious soul will disdain the world's persisted obloquy!"

Cornelia wept the more at these words; but she strove to speak; and to gently extricate her hand from a grasp, which already seemed the convulsive pressures of death.

"You will tell de Montemar," cried he in great emotion; and in that moment, of what he thought mortal fainting, forgetting his caution:—"You will tell him——" he paused, and struggled for a few seconds—then gasping—relinquished the hand he held, and fell back upon his pillow.

Cornelia saw and heard no more; she fainted, and sunk upon the floor.

When she recovered, she found herself in another room, and supported by her uncle of Lindisfarne.

"Your fears are premature, my dear child;" cried the venerable man, as soon as she opened her eyes; "Lorenzo has just been in to tell me, your invalid guest is now recovering from the swoon in which you left him; and that the surgeons are in his chamber."

"Heaven has brought you my revered uncle!" cried she, "to sustain me. You will see him?"

"For that purpose," replied Mr. Athelstone, "I came."

Indeed, as soon as he received Louis's few lines, imparting his indispensable absence, and obligation to leave Cornelia to take charge of his invalid friend; the good Pastor judged, that whoever this nameless person might be, and for whatever reasons his reception at Morewick was to be generally concealed; yet it was his duty not to allow his niece to be with servants alone, in the distressing scene which the agitated letter of his nephew confessed might be anticipated during his absence. Notwithstanding all Louis's caution in his first communications respecting his foreign friend; and his subsequent reserve while continuing his apologies from the same cause, for his and Cornelia's detention at Morewick; Mr. Athelstone drew his own conclusions, that there was more unexplained, than the fantastic mystery of a foreigner wishing to travel incognito. He knew Louis's mind too well, to believe that he would adopt with such carefulness of concealment, so trifling a whim. He was convinced that danger to one party at least, hung over the discovery; and in his guesses, he was not very remote from the truth. The more his suspicions gained ground, from the style of his nephew's last letter, the more he saw the propriety of acting in defiance of Louis's positive request, that he would allow none of the Lindisfarne family to interrupt the charitable duties of Cornelia. The earnestness of this injunction; (for it was put, so as not to admit of a discussion;) confirmed Mr. Athelstone in an idea, that peril was attached to the entertainer of this mysterious personage; and resolving to protect his nephew and his niece in the possible dilemma into which humanity on one side, and romantic generosity on the other, might involve their safeties, he ordered a post chaise to await him on the opposite shore. Without imparting any thing of these reflections or motives to Mrs. Coningsby, he left his directions with her and Alice, to prepare every comfort for the expected reception of the Marchioness and her daughter. Busy in the hospitable bustle of such arrangements, the happy mother and her favourite child, saw Mr. Athelstone depart to rejoin Cornelia, without a suspicion of the nature of his errand. He alighted in the hall at Morewick, at the very moment Lorenzo had found Miss Coningsby lying insensible in the room of the stranger, who at the instant seemed beyond all future pain. She was brought into the next chamber, and delivered into the arms of her uncle; while Lorenzo recalled the medical assistants to his master's friend: and the result he communicated, as soon as the Duke breathed, to the benevolent inquiries of the Pastor.

When Cornelia had sufficiently recovered from her swoon to speak with composure, she related with brief eloquence, all that had passed between her and the invalid since his restored senses. Unconsciously to herself, her heart spoke; and she ended her communications by affirming, that notwithstanding his acknowledgement of errors, and the secrecy that involved him, she must believe him to be a man not less illustrious in the nobleness of his life, than in birth and station.

Mr. Athelstone listened attentively to all she had to say and to conjecture about the object of their discourse. She always distinguished him, by the approving and pitying appellation of the noble sufferer; and the penetration of her uncle, soon discovered, that his niece was no longer an impartial speaker.

"Cornelia," replied he, "I perceive you have no suspicion, who this noble sufferer may be?"

"None, my uncle."

"But I have. I recognise him in every word you have uttered, except his repentance; and that may be yet the salutation of Iscariot!"

"My uncle! what do you mean?" "I mean to speak of one," returned the Pastor, "whose heart was lifted up because of his beauty; and he corrupted his wisdom, by reason of his brightness; and where we should have found light, there was darkness, and the mouth of the grave!"

Cornelia sunk into a seat. "Sir," cried she, "you terrify me with an unutterable apprehension! If he be what you suppose, you are a Christian minister! Go to him, in this his last hour; and save him if it be possible, from the death whence there is no recall!"

Her hands were clasped over her face, as she pronounced the last words. Lorenzo at the same moment appeared at the door; and beckoning Mr. Athelstone, the pious man left the room, with the intention, if Duke Wharton yet breathed, to obey the prayer of his niece, in exhorting him to a sincere repentance.