Dec.

5th

.

He is gone at last. I sat beside him all night, with my hand fast locked in his, watching the changes of his features and listening to his failing breath. He had been silent a long time, and I thought he would never speak again, when he murmured, faintly but distinctly⁠—“Pray for me, Helen!”

“I do pray for you, every hour and every minute, Arthur; but you must pray for yourself.”

His lips moved, but emitted no sound;⁠—then his looks became unsettled; and, from the incoherent, half-uttered words that escaped him from time to time, supposing him to be now unconscious, I gently disengaged my hand from his, intending to steal away for a breath of air, for I was almost ready to faint; but a convulsive movement of the fingers, and a faintly whispered “Don’t leave me!” immediately recalled me: I took his hand again, and held it till he was no more⁠—and then I fainted. It was not grief; it was exhaustion, that, till then, I had been enabled successfully to combat. Oh, Frederick! none can imagine the miseries, bodily and mental, of that deathbed! How could I endure to think that that poor trembling soul was hurried away to everlasting torment? it would drive me mad.

Dec. 5th .