her, and no voice of earth, however anguished and imploring, can
reach her ice-bound heart. As the first faint touch of light that came
to usher in her wedding morn broke upon the earth, she had died, and
gone somewhere

"Above the smoke and stir of this dim spot
Which men call earth."

CHAPTER XXXVII.

"Was I deceived, or did a sable cloud
Turn forth her silver lining on the night?"--MILTON.

The two months that Dorian has given himself in which to finish the
business that, he said, had brought him home, have almost come to an
end. Already winter is passing out of mind, and "Spring comes up this
way."

The "checkered daffodil" and the soft plaintive primrose are bursting
into bloom. The gentle rain comes with a passing cloud, and sinks
lovingly into the earth's bosom and into the hearts of the opening
buds.

The grass is springing; all the world is rich with fresh young life.
The very snowdrops--pale blossoms, born of bitter winds and sunless
skies--have perished out of sight.

Ruth is lying in her grave, cold and forgotten save by two,--the man
who has most wronged her, and the woman who had most to forgive her.
As yet, Clarissa cannot rise out of the depression that fell upon her
when Horace's treachery was first made known to her. Her love had
seemed so good, so tender, it had so brightened all her life, and had
been so much a part of her existence, that it seemed to carry to the
grave with it all her youth and gladness. However untrue this young
love of her life had been, still, while she believed in it, it had
been beautiful to her, and it is with bitterest grief she has laid it
aside; to her it had been a living thing, and even as it fades from
her she cries to it aloud to stay, and feels her arms empty in that it
no longer fills them.

"But, oh, not yet, not yet
Would my lost soul forget
How beautiful he was while he did live,
Or, when his eyes were dewy and lips wet,
What kisses, tenderer than all regret,
My love would give.

"Strew roses on his breast,--
He loved the roses best;
He never cared for lilies or for snow.
Let be this bitter end of his sweet quest;
Let be the pallid silence, that is rest,
And let all go!"

Mr. Winter's exquisite words come often to her; and yet, when the
first great pang is over, a sensation that may be almost called relief
raises her soul and restores her somew