Aubert, whose anxiety for his wife overcame every other consideration, detained the physician in his house.He remembered the feelings and the reflections that had called a momentary gloom upon his mind, on the day when he had last visited the fishing-house, in company with Madame St.Aubert, and he now admitted a presentiment, that this illness would be a fatal one.But he effectually concealed this from her, and from his daughter, whom he endeavoured to re-animate with hopes that her constant assiduities would not be unavailing.The physician, when asked by St.Aubert for his opinion of the disorder, replied, that the event of it depended upon circumstances which he could not ascertain.Madame St.Aubert seemed to have formed a more decided one; but her eyes only gave hints of this.She frequently fixed them upon her anxious friends with an expression of pity, and of tenderness, as if she anticipated the sorrow that awaited them, and that seemed to say, it was for their sakes only, for their sufferings, that she regretted life.On the seventh day, the disorder was at its crisis.The physician assumed a graver manner, which she observed, and took occasion, when her family had once quitted the chamber, to tell him, that she perceived her death was approaching.'Do not attempt to deceive me,'
said she, 'I feel that I cannot long survive.I am prepared for the event, I have long, I hope, been preparing for it.Since I have not long to live, do not suffer a mistaken compassion to induce you to flatter my family with false hopes.If you do, their affliction will only be the heavier when it arrives: I will endeavour to teach them resignation by my example.'
The physician was affected; he promised to obey her, and told St.
Aubert, somewhat abruptly, that there was nothing to expect.The latter was not philosopher enough to restrain his feelings when he received this information; but a consideration of the increased affliction which the observance of his grief would occasion his wife, enabled him, after some time, to command himself in her presence.
Emily was at first overwhelmed with the intelligence; then, deluded by the strength of her wishes, a hope sprung up in her mind that her mother would yet recover, and to this she pertinaciously adhered almost to the last hour.
The progress of this disorder was marked, on the side of Madame St.
Aubert, by patient suffering, and subjected wishes.The composure, with which she awaited her death, could be derived only from the retrospect of a life governed, as far as human frailty permits, by a consciousness of being always in the presence of the Deity, and by the hope of a higher world.But her piety could not entirely subdue the grief of parting from those whom she so dearly loved.During these her last hours, she conversed much with St.Aubert and Emily, on the prospect of futurity, and on other religious topics.The resignation she expressed, with the firm hope of meeting in a future world the friends she left in this, and the effort which sometimes appeared to conceal her sorrow at this temporary separation, frequently affected St.Aubert so much as to oblige him to leave the room.Having indulged his tears awhile, he would dry them and return to the chamber with a countenance composed by an endeavour which did but increase his grief.
Never had Emily felt the importance of the lessons, which had taught her to restrain her sensibility, so much as in these moments, and never had she practised them with a triumph so complete.But when the last was over, she sunk at once under the pressure of her sorrow, and then perceived that it was hope, as well as fortitude, which had hitherto supported her.St.Aubert was for a time too devoid of comfort himself to bestow any on his daughter.