Though her soft cheek lay so very near his lips, they never touched it.  He drew back, shuddering all over, and said, hoarsely,

“I can not; I dare not; I am not worthy.”

I do not know if she guessed what he meant, but she tried to lift his head, which was bent down on the cushion beside her, so that he might look into her true eyes as she answered,

“You must not think that—­you must not say so.  I know you have been angry and almost mad for many months, but you are not so now, and you never will be any more.  It was my fault—­yes, mine.  If I had not been so cold and proud, you would never have left me.  You thought I did not love you; but I did; my own, my darling, I did—­so dearly!”

All Guy’s stout manhood was shivered within him, utterly and suddenly, as 4000 years ago the rock was cloven in Horeb, the Mount of God.  Now, too, from the rift in the granite the waters flowed; the first tears that he had shed since he was a very little child—­the last that any mortal saw there—­streamed hot and blinding from his eyes down on the thin, transparent hand that he held fast.

Would those with whom he was a by-word for hard sternness of character have known him then?  They would have been almost as much surprised to see Constance Brandon—­thought so haughty and cold—­overcoming her terror at his passionate burst of grief, to soothe him with every tenderest gesture and with words that were each a caress, till the convulsion passed away, and calm self-government returned.

Guy did not speak till he could quite control himself; then he said firmly, but with a sob in his voice still,

“Yet I have killed you!”

“No, no,” Constance answered, quickly; “indeed it is not so.  A cold which attacked my chest caused this illness; but they say my lungs were affected long ago, and that I could hardly have lived many months.  You must think of that, dear; and perhaps it is much better that it should be so.  Life is very hard and difficult, I think, and I should never have been strong enough to bear my part in it well.”

Guy shook his head sadly, as if only half convinced, though he knew she would not have said an untrue word even to save him from suffering.

“If you could only stay with me—­if I could only keep you!” he cried out, and threw his arms round her, as if their strong clasp would hold her back one step on the road along which the messengers of God had been beckoning her for many days past.

“Hush!” Constance whispered; “you must be patient.  Yet I like to think that you will not forget me soon.  Now listen—­” and she held up her finger with something of the “old imperial air.”  “I have something to ask of you.  Will you not like to do it for my sake, even if it is hard?”

He did not answer; but she understood the pressure of his hand, and went on.

“I have been fearing so much that something terrible will happen between you and Cyril.  He is so passionate and willful, he will not listen to me, though he loves me dearly, and though I have tried every entreaty I could think of. (She grew paler than ever, and shuddered visibly.) And you are not patient, Guy, dear; but you would be this time, would you not?  Only think how it would grieve me if—­”