Just before her collapse Rachael was still a beautiful woman.  She was only thirty-two when she died.  Her face, except when she forced her brain to activity, was sad and worn, but the mobile beauty of the features was unimpaired, and her eyes were luminous, even at their darkest.  Her head was always proudly erect, and nature had given her a grace and a dash which survived broken fortunes and the death of her coquetry.  No doubt this is the impression of her which Alexander carried through life, for those last two months passed to the sound of falling ruins, on which he was too sensible to dwell when they had gone into the control of his will.

After she had admitted to Alexander that she understood her condition, they seldom alluded to the subject, although their conversation was as rarely impersonal.  The house stood high, and Rachael’s windows commanded one of the most charming views on the Island.  Below was the green valley, with the turbaned women moving among the cane, then the long white road with its splendid setting of royal palms, winding past a hill with groves of palms, marble fountains and statues, terraces covered with hibiscus and orchid, and another Great House on its summit.  Far to the right, through an opening in the hills, was a glimpse of the sea.

Rachael lay on a couch in a little balcony during much of the soft winter day, and talked to Alexander of her mother and her youth, finally of his father, touching lightly on the almost forgotten episode with Levine.  All that she did not say his creative brain divined, and when she told him what he had long suspected, that his mother’s name was unknown to the Hamiltons of Grange, he accepted the fact as but one more obstacle to be overthrown in the battle with life which he had long known he was to fight unaided.  To criticise his mother never occurred to him; her control of his heart and imagination was too absolute.  His only regret was that she could not live until he was able to justify her.  The audacity and boldness of his nature were stimulated by the prospect of this sharp battle with the world’s most cherished convention, and he was fully aware of all that he owed to his mother.  When he told her this she said:—­

“I regret nothing, even though it has brought me to this.  In the first place, it is not in me to do anything so futile.  In the second place, I have been permitted to live in every part of my nature, and how many women can say that?  In the third, you are in the world, and if I could live I should see you the honoured of all men.  I die with regret because you need me for many years to come, and I have suffered so much that I never could suffer again.  Remember always that you are to be a great man, not merely a successful one.  Your mind and your will are capable of all things.  Never try for the second best, and that means to put your immediate personal desire aside when it encounters one of the ideals of your time.  Unless you identify