Swiftly passed the happy days in the beautiful villa home to which Arthur Barrington had taken his bride. But at length remorseful thoughts of his father's loneliness would intrude themselves upon Arthur's happiest hours, until he could bear it no longer; so he told Louisa the unkind way in which he had left his father, and how unhappy he was on that account, proposing that they should proceed to Barrington Park without delay. To this she readily agreed, but unfortunately their route lay through a district where a malignant fever was very prevalent, and while traversing a lone and dreary portion of this district, Arthur was attacked with this terrible disease. He strove bravely against it, and endeavored to push on to the nearest town, but that was yet forty miles distant, when Arthur became so alarmingly ill that they were forced to stop at a little hamlet and put up with the best accommodation its miserable inn afforded, which was poor indeed. There was no doctor to be had nearer than Z----, but the driver promised to procure one from there if possible. With this they were obliged to be content; but day after day passed and none came, while Arthur hourly became worse, and Louisa grew half wild with grief and fear.
"If we could only get a doctor, I believe he would soon be well; but, ah! it is so dreadful to see him die for want of proper advice," murmured Louisa, glancing toward the bed where Arthur lay tossing in the terrible malaria fever, so fatal to temperaments such as his; "but he will not die, O no I cannot believe that my happiness will be of such short duration that I shall again be left in such icy desolation. Oh! Arthur, Arthur, do not leave me she sobbed, covering her face with her hands, but Arthur does not heed her, racked with burning fever he cannot even recognize her, as with patient gentleness she endeavors to alleviate his sufferings with cooling drinks, or bathes his burning brow. In vain were all the remedies that the simple people of the inn could suggest, or that Louisa's love could devise. Day by day his life ebbed away consumed by the disease, the prostration and langour following the fever being too much for his strength, thus Louisa saw that he who alone in the wide world loved or cared for her, was fast passing away; still though she could not but see it was so, she would not believe the terrible truth, but clung to the hope that a doctor might yet arrive before it was too late, and so her great bereavement came upon her with overwhelming force, when after a day of more than usual langour, during her midnight vigil, he ceased to breathe. Louisa had not known why he had clasped her hand so tightly all that night as she sat beside his couch, he was dead, and with a cry of anguish Louisa fell insensible beside the lifeless body of her husband.
The moonbeams fell alike upon the inanimate forms of the living and the dead, and the morning sun rose brightly and she still lay there, none heard the midnight cry of anguish, or if heard it was unheeded, and the noisy lamentations of the girl who brought in the morning meal, greeted her as consciousness returned. The master of the inn said the funeral must take place at sunset, and Louisa shed bitter tears in the little room which was given her, while the corpse was being prepared for interment, for these precipitate funeral arrangements added greatly to Louisa's grief. Composed but deadly pale she followed Arthur's remains to the grave--his only mourner; there was no minister to be had, but Louisa could not see him buried thus, so read herself a portion of the beautiful burial service of the Episcopal Church, then amid tears and sobs she watched them pile and smooth the earth above him, and when they had finished, with a wail of agony she threw herself in a burst of passionate grief upon the damp earth, and there she lay until darkness enveloped all around, heedless of danger, of time, of everything but her deep deep grief, her misery, and her irreparable loss. And there she would have remained but for Francesca, the girl who had waited on them; Francesca had some pity for the poor lady, and with a great effort stifled her superstitious fears, and went down to the grave and led her away, whispering you will get the fever here. So Louisa returned desolate indeed to the miserable inn, not for a moment because of the fear of fever, only dreamily, scarcely knowing where she was going.
Those long hours with the dead had but too surely done their work, Louisa was attacked with the same fever of which her husband died, but carelessly tended and neglected as she was, she did not die.
When she was able to go out again, she would sit pensively for hours by Arthur's grave, or in passionate grief throw herself upon it and wish that she too might die. It was after one of these paroxysms of despair that Louisa remembered her promise to Arthur, that she would take his letter to his father at Barrington Park. Faithful to her word she reluctantly prepared to depart, when to her dismay she found that a cheque for a large amount had been abstracted from Arthur's desk, and further search discovered that nearly every article of value had been pe............
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