When he opened his eyes, which had been closed all through the protracted death-pang, there was a look of the ancient kindness in them, though they were glazing fast.  He found my hand, and grasped it, till I felt the life ebbing back in his fingers.  I saw his lips syllable “Good-by;” then, he leaned his head back gently, and, without a sigh or a shiver, the strong man’s spirit went forth into The Night.

A sense of utter desolation, as it were a horror of great darkness, gathered all around me as I leaned my forehead against the corpse’s cheek, sobbing like a helpless child.

You will not care to hear how we all mourned him.

Will you care to hear that, often as his mother visits his grave, there is one woman who comes oftener still?

None of us have ever met her, for she comes always at late night or early morning.  But finding, in the depth of winter or in the bleak spring, the ground about strewed with the choicest of exotic flowers—­not carefully arranged, but showered down by a reckless, desperate hand—­we know that Flora Dorrillon has been there.

Do not laugh at her too much for clinging to the one romance of her artificial existence.  Remember, while he lived, there was nothing so rare and precious—­ay, even to the sacrifice of her own body and soul—­that she would not have laid ungrudgingly at Guy Livingstone’s feet.

THE END.