Since the night, upon which he had been so extremely ill to be
supposed dying, and yet had rallied, the doctors felt no
apprehensions of his speedy death, though they gave no hopes of his
final recovery.
Under these circumstances there were hours in which Le Noir bitterly
regretted his precipitation in permitting those important documents
to go out of his own hands. And he frequently sent for Herbert
Greyson in private to require assurances that he would not open the
packet confided to him before the occurrence of the event specified.
And Herbert always soothed the sufferer by reiterating his promise
that so long as Colonel Le Noir should survive the seals of that
packet should not be broken.
Beyond the suspicion that the parcel contained an important
confession, Herbert Greyson was entirely ignorant of its contents.
But the life of Gabriel Le Noir was prolonged beyond all human
calculus of probabilities.
He was spared to experience a more effectual repentance than that
spurious one into which he had been frightened by the seeming rapid
approach of death. And after seven months of lingering illness and
gradual decline, during the latter portions of which he was
comforted by the society of his only son, who had come at his
summons to visit him, in May, 1848, Gabriel Le Noir expired a
sincere penitent, reconciled to God and man.
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