“Do not deceive yourself.  Your confession has come too late.  I can never be yours, for the hand of death is already laid upon me, and my spirit will wing its way, ere long, home to God.  Now that we understand each other, and while I yet live, let us be as calm, as happy as the circumstances allow.  It may seem hard that I should be taken when the future appears so bright, but I do not repine, neither must you.  God, ever good and merciful, sees that it is best I should go, and we will not embitter the few hours left us by vain regrets.”  Too feeble to speak more, she closed her eyes, while her breathing grew painfully short.

Dr Bryant bent forward, and gently lifting her head, supported her with his strong arm, and stroked off from her beautiful brow the clustering hair.  A long time she lay motionless, with closed eyes, and bending his head, he pressed a long kiss on the delicately-chiseled lips.

“O God! spare me my gentle angel Mary,” he murmured, as looking on the wan, yet lovely face, he felt that to yield her up was more than he could bear.

At this moment Mrs. Carlton entered:  he held out his hand, and drawing her to his side, said, in a deep, tender tone: 

“She is mine now, sister; thank God, that at last I have won her, and pray with me that she may be spared to us both.”

Fervently she pressed his hand, and a tear rolled down and dropped upon it, as she bent down to kiss the sufferer.  Gently he put her back.

“She is wearied, and just fallen asleep; do not wake her.”

He carefully depressed his arm that she might rest more easily.  Mrs. Carlton seated herself beside her brother, and whispered: 

“You will not go to-morrow, Frank?”

“No, no; I will not leave her a moment.  Ellen, does she seem very much thinner since leaving home?  I know she is very pale.”

“Yes, Frank; she is fearfully changed within the last week.”

“Oh, Ellen! if she should be taken from me;” and closer he drew his arm, as though fearing some unseen danger.

“We must look to Heaven for her restoration, and God is good,” answered his sister, turning away to conceal her tears.

CHAPTER XXVII.

    “Ah! whence yon glare

That fires the arch of heaven?—­that dark red smoke
Blotting the silver moon?... 
Hark to that roar whose swift and deafening peals,
In countless echoes, through the mountains ring,
Startling pale midnight on her starry throne!

* * * * *

Loud and more loud, the discord grows,
Till pale Death shuts the scene,
And o’er the conqueror and the conquered draws
His cold and bloody shroud.”

SHELLEY.