Yet, when she looked upon the face of the invalid, so pale and
motionless, where so long the shades of grief and the lights of joy had
chased each other, by the old decree of human destiny, the words of Paul
would occur to her. Was the death that was there impending the result of
a more necessary law than that which had ruled every other condition of
body or mind which had ever been experienced by the patient sufferer?
Then there came the question, Could Walter Grierson so regulate his
heart as to force it to love her in preference to Agnes Ainslie? Could
she, Rachel herself, so rule her feelings as to cease loving the man she
still suspected of falsehood and treachery? It was even while she was
thus ruminating over thoughts that made her tremble, that she observed,
on the third night, a change in her patient. He seemed to start by the
advent of some recollection. His body became restless, and he waved his
hand wildly, as if he wanted her to bend over him, to hear what he might
struggle to say. She immediately obeyed the sign. He fixed his eyes upon
her, made efforts to articulate, which resulted only in a thick, broken
gibberish. She could only catch one or two indistinct words, from which
it seemed that he wished to tell her _where she would find the will_;
but the precise phrase whereby he wished to indicate the deposit was
pronounced in such an imperfect manner that she could not make it out.
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