Page:The Adventures of David Simple (1904).djvu/314

, and concluded with saying, 'I don't expect, Isabelle, you should forgive me, for it is impossible you should ever forget the irreparable injury I have done you; but yet give me leave to say, that, notwithstanding all you feel, it is impossible for you, who are innocent, to have any idea adequate to my torments, who have the intolerable load of guilt added to all my other afflictions.' The word guilt filled her with such horror that I had no opportunity of making her any reply; for, from that instant, she was insensible of everything that was said to her, and died in three hours. "The surgeon who had been sent for by my brother, in hopes of his helping Dumont, came soon enough to give him that assistance which the poor Chevalier could not receive. The wound he had given himself was not a mortal one, though very dangerous; but the great difficulty was to bring him to think of suffering life, and to quiet the agony his mind was in. This surpassed the surgeon's art; but religion did that which no human help could have done. An ecclesiastic of uncommon piety, who had been long my brother's confessor, came to attend him upon this occasion. He so strongly represented to him the danger his soul would be in, if, to the other unfortunate effects of his passion, he added self-murder; he so pathetically enforced to him the duty of composing his thoughts, in order to turn them to Heaven, and of assisting his cure as much as lay in his own power, that he might live to atone, by repentance and virtue, for the rash action he had committed, that these pious arguments brought him to a calmer temper of mind; and, being naturally of a strong constitution, he was by degrees entirely recovered. The tenderness he felt for me contributed also to the saving his life; for as soon as 1 knew there were any hopes of him (which was not till after I had taken my last farewell of his wretched wife), I flew