It will be
very hard, I know! Anything I can do, watching with you night and
day, giving myself to help you, I am ready for. I will do all that
lies in me to deliver you from the weariness and sickness of the
endeavour. I will give my life to strengthen yours, and count it
well spent and myself honoured: I shall then have lived a life worth
living! Resolve, my lord--in God's name resolve at once to be free.
Then you shall know you have a free will, for your will will have
made itself free by doing the will of God against all disinclination
of your own. It will be a glorious victory, and will set you high on
the hill whose peak is the throne of God."
"I will begin to-morrow," said the earl feebly, and with a strange
look in his eyes. "--But now you must leave me. I need solitude to
strengthen my resolve. Come to me again to-morrow. I am weary, and
must rest awhile. Send Simmons."
Donal was nowise misled by the easy, postponed consent, but he could
not prolong the interview. He rose and went. In the act of shutting
the door behind him, something, he did not know what, made him turn
his head: the earl was leaning over the little table by his bedside,
and pouring something from a bottle into a glass. Donal stood
transfixed. The earl turned and saw him, cast on him a look of
almost demoniacal hate, put the glass to his lips and drank off its
contents, then threw himself back on his pillows.
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