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Updated: May 7, 2025
When they were quite safe, she felt again that it was there, and that her eyes were growing dizzy, and her hands involuntarily grasping about for support. She did not take time to feel more, but sprang upon the plank, and over it, and found Paulett's hand seizing hers, and drawing her up the opposite bank.
There were fragments of shivered glass on the floor; there was a statue broken to pieces on the table, on the pedestal of which was written "Patience;" there were pieces of torn paper in the hands of one, which seemed a letter; all these faint shadowings of long stories, and of a scene of which there remained no witness, struck Paulett's eye.
They chose among the rooms which had been those of friends, and recognised familiar objects of their everyday existence. It was a conceit of Paulett's, for which he smiled at himself, to wind up the clock in the hall, and set it to tell out the time again for another week. There were musical instruments in a room adjoining, and over one of these Ellen timidly passed her fingers.
Ellen's heart died within her; her senses were troubled, and she pressed herself in Paulett's arms without knowing when he came, or being surprised that he was there. "Oh, Paulett!" she said at last, "I have not done wrong, but it is so dreadful!"
She began to hope that Humfrey had after all brought a false alarm, and that either he had been mistaken or that Langston was deceiving the Council itself, and though Sir Amias Paulett's close proximity held her silent, those who knew her best saw that her indomitably buoyant spirits were rising, and she hummed to herself the refrain of a gay French hunting-song, with the more zest perhaps that her warder held himself trebly upright, stiff and solemn under it, as one who thought such lively times equally unbefitting a lady, a queen, and a captive.
He hastily crossed the marble halls and gilded rooms, and came out in the sunlight the splendid, solemn sunlight that looked upon a burnt-up world! Meantime, poor Ellen waited anxiously in the cavern, and as soon as the first possible moment for Paulett's return was passed, her fears grew strong.
The day she had thought he would return rose and set, and so did another and another; and from fearing, she had begun to believe, indeed, that Paulett's earthly hours were passed. Yet hope would not be subdued entirely; and then she felt that perhaps by prolonging their lives another day only, she should save them to welcome him, and to profit by his hard-earned treasure.
She turned her face on Paulett's breast, and soon after tried to rise and push herself from him. "Leave me, dear husband; kiss me once, and leave me; try to save them!" But Paulett folded his arms round her. "Not so, my Ellen; the chances of life are so little, that it is lawful for me to give them up, unless we can all seek them together. Alas! all I can do is but to see thee die!
Paulett's heart beat high. Was there some one still living like himself; another human creature struggling for existence in this great world, and guarding, as he had done in his cavern, his treasure of water? Should he have another companion to speak with; another, with whom, perhaps, to get over the evil days; to whom to communicate his secret of producing water from diamonds?
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