They both followed him with
admiring eyes as he left the room; and when he stood a moment in the
open door and touched his brow with his hand, as a parting courtesy,
neither could help an expression of satisfaction.
"What a handsome lad!" said Richard.
"He is. If he live to take his father's or my place here, he will be
a noble squire of Hallam."
"Then he is to be your successor?"
"Failing Anthony."
"Then, Elizabeth dear, he is squire of Hallam already, for Anthony
is dead."
"Dead! Without a word! Without sign of any kind--O, Richard, is it
really--death?"
Richard bowed his head, and Elizabeth sat gazing out of the window
with vacant introspective vision, trying to call up from the past the
dear form that would come no more. She put down her sewing, and Richard
drew closer to her side, and comforted her with assurances that he
believed, "all was well with the dead." "I was with him during the
last weeks of his sad life," he said; "I did all that love could
suggest to soothe his sufferings. He sleeps well; believe me."
"I never heard from him after our sorrowful farewell. I looked and
hoped for a little until my heart failed me; and I thought he perished
at sea."
"No; God's mercy spared him until he had proved the vanity of all
earthly ambition, and then he gave him rest.
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