here is nothing that I need grieve to
leave behind.

"If he had still loved me, if it were circumstance that kept our lives
apart, I could send for him then; but to die in arms that held me only
out of compassion--glad to relinquish their burden as soon as might
be--no, I must go without seeing his face again.

"And to-night I can only feel the great gladness that it is to be.
Suppose I knew that there were twenty-five more such years as these!
Suppose it should be a mistake, and I had to live!

* * * * *

I looked from these last written words to the photograph. My eyes were
blurred, but Tom only leaned back, motionless as before, apathetic as
before.

"How long--" I began, tentatively.

"She lived a week after that," Callender replied, in his dry,
emotionless voice.

"And the man?"

"He was my brother," replied Callender. "She never saw him again. He
married Miss Stockweis about a month after."

I thought of Ralph Callender, cold, correct, slightly bored, as I have
always known him, of Miss Stockweis, a dull, purse-proud blonde.

I seized the poor little photograph and raised it reverently to my lips.

"Forgive me, Tom," I said, slightly abashed. (I never could control my
impulses.) "The best thing you can do is to thank God for her death.
Think of a woman like that--"

"Thank you," said Tom wearily. "Yes, I _am_ glad."

And then I grasped the thin brown hand in my own for a moment, and felt
it respond faintly to my clasp.

We sat as quietly as before in the cheerful, smoke-filled room, I
puffing slightly at my Ajar, and Tom's sleepless eyes fixed absently on
the wall; and then presently I went to the window and watched the dull
gray dawn creep over the still sleeping city.

"Well, here's another day," I said with a sigh, turning back to the
room. "I must go, old fellow."

There was no reply. Startled, I bent over the chair, and looked in the
face, scarcely more ivory-white than before. And then I saw that for
Callender there would be no more days.

THE END.

End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of A Village Ophelia and Other Stories
by Anne Reeve Aldrich

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