expression of a desire and slightest request had ever been a law with me.

I, of course, consented, the moment that I saw that she had set her heart

upon this step. We sent half our attendant troop on to Adrian; and with the

other half our carriage took a retrograde course back to Windsor.

I wonder now how I could be so blind and senseless, as thus to risk the

safety of Idris; for, if I had eyes, surely I could see the sure, though

deceitful, advance of death in her burning cheek and encreasing weakness.

But she said she was better; and I believed her. Extinction could not be

near a being, whose vivacity and intelligence hourly encreased, and whose

frame was endowed with an intense, and I fondly thought, a strong and

permanent spirit of life. Who, after a great disaster, has not looked back

with wonder at his inconceivable obtuseness of understanding, that could

not perceive the many minute threads with which fate weaves the

inextricable net of our destinies, until he is inmeshed completely in it?

The cross roads which we now entered upon, were even in a worse state than

the long neglected high-ways; and the inconvenience seemed to menace the

perishing frame of Idris with destruction. Passing through Dartford, we

arrived at Hampton on the second day. Even in this short interval my

beloved companion grew sensibly worse in health, though her spirits were

still light, and she cheered my growing anxiety with gay sallies; sometimes

the thought pierced my brain--Is she dying?--as I saw her fair

fleshless hand rest on mine, or observed the feebleness with which she

performed the accustomed acts of life. I drove away the idea, as if it had

been suggested by insanity; but it occurred again and again, only to be

464

The Last Man