“Yes,” Constance went on; “but I was thinking more than that.  I was hoping that perhaps, for my sake, if not for your own, you would try to grow better every day.  Only think what it would be if, throughout all ages, we were never to meet after to-day.”  She drew him closer to her, and her voice almost failed her.  “I don’t believe you ever could be what is called a very religious character.  I am so weak—­strong-minded as you thought me—­that I fear I have found an attraction in this fault of yours; but you could keep from great sins, I am sure.  Try and be gentler to others first, and with every act of unselfish kindness you will have gained something.  Any good clergyman will tell you the rest better than I. Remember how happy you will make me.  I believe I shall see and know it all.  It may be hard for you, dear, but it may not be for long.”

The same strange, wistful look came into her eyes again, as if shadows of the dim future were passing before them.

Poor child!  Pure as she was in principle and firm in truth, she would have made but a weak controversial theologian; but her simple words went straight to her hearer’s heart, with a stronger power of conversion than could have been found in the discourses of all the surpliced Chrysostoms that ever anathematized a sinner or anatomized a creed.

Yet Guy did not answer so soon this time.  When he did, he spoke firmly and resolutely:  “Indeed, indeed, I will try.”

Constance nestled down on his broad chest, wearily, but with a long-drawn breath of intense relief.

“I have said all my say,” she whispered; “I have not tired you?  Now I will rest, and you shall pet me and talk to me as you used to do.”

What broken sentences—­what pauses of silence yet more eloquent—­what lavish, tender caresses passed between those two, over whom the shadow of desolation was closing fast, I have never guessed, nor, if I could, would I write them in these pages.  I hold that there are partings bitterer to bear than a father’s from his child, and sorrows worthier of the veil than those of Agamemnon.

Though Guy repressed now all outward signs of painful emotion, he suffered, I believe, far the most of the two.  It is always so with those whom death is about to divide.  The agony is unequally distributed, falling heaviest on the one that remains behind.  If the separation were for years, and both were healthy and hopeful, very often the positions would be reversed; but—­whether it be that bodily weakness blunts the sharp sense of anticipated sorrow, or that, to eyes bent forward on the glories and terrors of the unknown world, earthly relations lessen by comparison—­you will find that with most, however impetuous it may have been in mid-channel, the river of life flows calmly and evenly just before its junction with the great ocean stream.  Besides, the dying girl had suffered so much of late that the present change left no room for other feelings than those of unalloyed happiness, and the words of love murmured into her ear brought with them a deeper delight than when she heard them for the first time from the same lips.