late?"—It was.—For amendment, for return from error, for repentance it was too late. Death struck her at that moment. One piercing shriek proclaimed his power, as casting up her eyes with bitterness and horror, she fixed them upon Lord Avondale.
That piercing shriek had escaped from a broken heart. It was the last chord of nature, stretched to the utmost till it broke. A cold chill spread itself over her limbs. In the struggle of death, she had thrown her arms around her husband's neck; and when her tongue cleaved to her mouth, and her lips were cold and powerless, her eyes yet bright with departing life had fixed themselves earnestly upon him, as if imploring pardon for the past.
Oh, resist not that look, Avondale! it is the last. Forgive her—pity her: and if they call it weakness in thee thus to weep, tell them that man is weak,
