"It is Esther!" exclaimed they, both at once. They rushed outside;
and, fallen into what appeared simply a heap of white or
light-coloured clothes, fainting or dead, lay the poor crushed
Butterfly--the once innocent Esther. She had come (as a wounded
deer drags its heavy limbs once more to the green coolness of the
lair in which it was born, there to die) to see the place familiar
to her innocence, yet once again before her death. Whether she was
indeed alive or dead, they knew not now.
Job came in with Margaret, for it was bedtime. He said Esther's
pulse beat a little yet. They carried her upstairs and laid her on
Mary's bed, not daring to undress her, lest any motion should
frighten the trembling life away; but it was all in vain.
Towards midnight, she opened wide her eyes and looked around on the
once familiar room; Job Legh knelt by the bed praying aloud and
fervently for her, but he stopped as he saw her roused look. She
sat up in bed with a sudden convulsive motion.
"Has it been a dream, then?" asked she wildly. Then with a habit,
which came like instinct even in that awful dying hour, her hand
sought for a locket which hung concealed in her bosom, and, finding
that, she knew all was true which had befallen her since last she
lay an innocent girl on that bed.
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