The clammy, nerveless hands dropped—­the fatal sheet below them—­into Mabel’s lap.  She did not cry out or moan.  Things stricken to the heart generally fall dumbly.  It was not her cramped position within the window-seat that paralyzed her limbs, nor the chill of the twilight that crept through vein and bone.  For one sick second she believed herself to be dying, and would not have stirred a muscle or spoken a syllable to save the life which had suddenly grown worthless—­worthless, since she was never to see Frederic again; be no more to him than if she had never laid her head upon his bosom; never felt his kisses upon lip and forehead; never lived upon his words of love as rapt mortals, admitted in trances to the banquet of the gods, eat ambrosia, and drink to divinest ecstacy of nectar—­the elixir of immortal life and joy, sparkling in golden chalices.

She had had her dream—­ravishing and brief—­but the awakening was terrible as the struggle back to life from a swoon or deathful lethargy.  As to thinking, I believe nobody thinks at such seasons.  Nature shrinks in speechless horror at sight of the descending weight, and when it has fallen, lies motionless, gasping in breath to enable her to support the intolerable anguish, not speculating how to avert the next stroke.  Frederic and she were parted!  Had not Winston said so!  And when was he known to reverse a verdict!  She had nothing to do but sit still and let the waters go over her head.

Rosa was seated upon the upper step of the west porch, her chin cradled in her hand, her elbow on her knee, gazing on the darkening sky, and crooning Scotch ballads in a pensive, dreamy way.  Mabel, from her perch, eyed her as if she were a creature belonging to another world—­seen dimly, and comprehended yet more imperfectly.  Yet it could not have been half an hour—­thirty fleeting minutes—­since the two had talked as dear friends out of the fulness of their hearts.  Where were the hopes and happy memories that had made hers then a garden of pleasant things, a fruitful field which Heaven had blessed?  In that little inch of time, the flood had come and taken them all away.

Would the dry aching in her throat and chest ever be less?  Tears had gushed freely and healthfully after her last leave-taking with Frederic—­the looked farewell, which was all Winston’s surveillance had granted them.  She had been wounded then by her brother’s singular want of tact or feeling.  She had not the spirit to resent anything to-night, unless it were that God had made and suffered to live a being so wretched and useless as herself.  She supposed it was wicked—­but she did not care!  She ought to be resigned to the mysterious dispensations of Providence—­that was the prescribed phraseology of pious people.  She had heard the cant times without number.  What more would they have than her utter destitution of love and bliss?  Was she not miserable enough to satisfy the sternest believer in purgatorial purification? to appease the wrath even of Him who had wrought her desolation?  It must be the judgment of a retributive Deity upon her idolatrous affection that she was bearing—­her worship of Frederic.  Yes, she had loved him; she loved him now better than she did anything else upon earth—­better than she did anything in Heaven.