In thinking of it
afterwards, with shuddering avoidance of the haunting memory that would
come and overshadow her during many, many years of her life, she grew to
believe that the powerful smell of the spilt brandy absolutely
intoxicated her--an unconscious Rechabite in practice. But something
gave her a presence of mind and a courage not her own. And though she
learnt to think afterwards that she had acted unwisely, if not wrongly
and wickedly, yet she marvelled, in recalling that time, how she could
have then behaved as she did. First of all she lifted herself up from
her fascinated gaze at the dead man, and went to the staircase door, by
which she had entered the study, and shut it softly. Then she went
back--looked again; took the brandy-bottle, and knelt down, and tried to
pour some into the mouth; but this she found she could not do. Then she
wetted her handkerchief with the spirit, and moistened the lips; all to
no purpose; for, as I have said before, the man was dead--killed by
rupture of a vessel of the brain; how occasioned I must tell by-and-by.
Of course, all Ellinor's little cares and efforts produced no effect; her
father had tried them before--vain endeavours all, to bring back the
precious breath of life! The poor girl could not bear the look of those
open eyes, and softly, tenderly, tried to close them, although
unconscious that in so doing she was rendering the pious offices of some
beloved hand to a dead man.
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