died disdain! We were almost strangers to each
other before,--nay, I half fancied that he kept aloof from me.
Probably,"--here D'Esmonde smiled with a bland dignity,--"probably he
called me a 'Jesuit,'--that name so full of terror to good Protestant
ears; but, on his sick-bed, as he lay suffering and in solitude, his
faculties threw off the deceptive influences of prejudice; he read me
then more justly; he saw that I was his friend. Hours upon hours have we
passed talking of you; the theme seemed to give a spring to an existence
from which, till then, all zest of life had been withdrawn. I never
before saw as much of passion, with a temper so just and so forgiving.
He needed no aid of mine to read your motives truly. 'It is not for
herself that she has done this,' were words that he never ceased to
utter. He knew well the claims that family would make on you, the
heartrending appeals from those you could not but listen to! 'Oh! if I
could but think that she will not forget me; that some memory of me will
still linger in her mind!'--this was his burning prayer, syllabled by
lips parched by the heat of fever; and when I told him to write to
you--"

"To write to me!" cried she, catching his arm, while her cheeks trembled
with intense agony; "You did not give such counsel?"

"Not alone that," said D'Esmonde, calmly, "but promised that I would
myself deliver the letter into your hands. Is martyrdom less glorious
that a cry of agony escapes the victim, or that his limbs writhe as the
flame wraps round them? Is self-sacrifice to be denied the sorrowful
satisfaction to tell its woes? I bade him write because it would be good
for him and for you alike."

She stared eagerly, as if to ask his meaning.

"Good for both," repeated he, slowly. "Love will be, to him, a
guide-star through life, leading him by paths of high and honorable
ambition; to you it will be the consolation of hours that even splendor
will not enliven. Believe me,"----here he raised his voice to a tone
of command and authority,--"believe me that negation is the lot of
all. Happiest they who only suffer in their affections! And what is the
purest of all love? Is it not that the devotee feels for his protecting
saint,--that sense of ever-present care, that consciousness of a
watching, unceasing affection, that neither slumbers nor wearies,
following us in our joy, beside us in our afflictions? Some humble
effigy, some frail representation, is enough to embody th