At the same instant, the room was filled with a new and
powerful odour, and, almost at the same instant, he broke into a
crooked run, leap, start, - I have no name for the spasm, - and
fell, with a dull weight that shook the heavy old doors and windows
in their frames.
That was the fitting end of him.
When we saw that he was dead, we drew away from the room, and
Meltham, giving me his hand, said, with a weary air,
'I have no more work on earth, my friend. But I shall see her
again elsewhere.'
It was in vain that I tried to rally him. He might have saved her,
he said; he had not saved her, and he reproached himself; he had
lost her, and he was broken-hearted.
'The purpose that sustained me is over, Sampson, and there is
nothing now to hold me to life. I am not fit for life; I am weak
and spiritless; I have no hope and no object; my day is done.'
In truth, I could hardly have believed that the broken man who then
spoke to me was the man who had so strongly and so differently
impressed me when his purpose was before him. I used such
entreaties with him, as I could; but he still said, and always
said, in a patient, undemonstrative way, - nothing could avail him,
- he was broken-hearted.
He died early in the next spring. He was buried by the side of the
poor young lady for whom he had cherished those tender and unhappy
regrets; and he left all he had to her sister. She lived to be a
happy wife and mother; she married my sister's son, who succeeded
poor Meltham; she is living now, and her children ride about the
garden on my walking-stick when I go to see her.
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