h infinite care and pains,
dressed himself, crawled out of his bedroom into his library, which
was adjoining, and sat down at his desk. Margaret Bean came timidly
to the door, and inquired if he did not want some breakfast. She had
to repeat her query three times, he was writing so busily, and then
he answered her "no" as if his thoughts were elsewhere. The old woman
hungrily eyed the paper upon which he was scribbling, and went away
with lingering backward glances.

Lot Gordon, bending painfully over his desk, using his quill pen,
with wary motions of hand and wrist alone, that he might not jar his
wounded side, wrote a letter to the bride upon her wedding-journey.

"Madelon," wrote Lot, "I pray you to pardon what I have done, and
what I am about to do. The danger of blood-guiltiness and death have
I brought upon you, and I now save you in the only way I know. I pray
you, when you read this, and know what I have done, that you think of
me with what charity you may, and that the love which caused the deed
may be its saving grace."

Lot sat looking at what he had written for a moment, then tore it up,
and wrote again:

"Madelon,--Alive I claimed nothing, dead I claim your memory, for the
sake of the love for which I died."

And, after a moment, tore up that also.

And then he wrote again, with quivering lips, yet breathing
guardedly:

"Madelon,--The love that was set betwixt man and woman that the race
might not die is one love, but there is another. That have I found
and found through you, and bless you for it, though death be needful
to its keeping. There is another birth than that of the flesh,
through this so great love, which can upon itself beget immortality
of love unto the understanding of all which is above. A greater end
of love than the life of worlds there is, which is love itself. That
end have I attained through this great love in my own soul which you
have shown me, else should I have never known it there, and died so,
having lived to myself alone, and been no true lover.

"Lot Gordon."

And hesitated, reading it over; but at length tore that into shreds,
and wrote yet again:

"Dear Child,--I pray you when I am gone that you wear the pretty
gowns and the trinkets which I offered you once, for I would fain
give you for your happiness more than my poor life."

Tears of self-pity fell from Lot's eyes as he wrote the last; then he
laughed scornfully at himself, and tore that up. "Self dies ha