But
death for a brief interval withdrew his grasp; though his shaft had
reached her, and no human hand could draw it back. Father Denis had
conducted her so carefully and tenderly to the frontiers of Castile,
that she had scarcely felt fatigue, and encountered no exposure to the
elements; but when he left her, her desire to reach her home became
stronger, with the seeming physical incapacity to do so. Her spirit
gave way, and mental and bodily exhaustion followed. The season was
unusually damp and tempestuous, and, though scarcely felt at the time,
sowed the seeds of cold and decline, from which her naturally good
constitution might, in the very midst of her trials, otherwise have
saved her. Her repugnance to encounter the eyes or speech of her
fellows, lest her disguise should be penetrated, caused her to shrink
from entering any habitation, except for the single night which
intervened, between the period of the father's leaving her and her
reaching the secret entrance to the Vale. Her wallet provided her with
more food than her parched throat could swallow; and for the consuming
thirst, the fresh streams that so often bubbled across her path, gave
her all she needed. The fellowship of man, then, was unrequited,
and, as the second night fell, so comparatively short a distance lay
between her and her home, that buoyed up by the desire to reach it,
she was not sensible of her utter exhaustion, till she stood within
the little graveyard of the Vale; and the moon shining softly and
clearly on the headstones, disclosed to her the grave of her husband.
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