were then his emotions! His heart was like stone;
but he felt a rush as of a torrent to his temples: his eyes grew
dizzy,--he was stunned by the greatness of his despair. For the last
week he had taken hope for his companion; Gertrude had seemed so much
stronger, for her happiness had given her a false support. And though
there had been moments when, watching the bright hectic come and go,
and her step linger, and the breath heave short, he had felt the hope
suddenly cease, yet never had he known till now that fulness of anguish,
that dread certainty of the worst, which the calm, fair face before him
struck into his soul; and mixed with this agony as he gazed was all
the passion of the most ardent love. For there she lay in his arms,
the gentle breath rising from lips where the rose yet lingered, and
the long, rich hair, soft and silken as an infant's, stealing from
its confinement: everything that belonged to Gertrude's beauty was so
inexpressibly soft and pure and youthful! Scarcely seventeen, she seemed
much younger than she was; her figure had sunken from its roundness, but
still how light, how lovely were its wrecks! the neck whiter than snow,
the fair small hand! Her weight was scarcely felt in the arms of her
lover; and he--what a contrast!--was in all the pride and flower of
glorious manhood! His was the lofty brow, the wreathing hair, the
haughty eye, the elastic form; and upon this frail, perishable thing
had he fixed all his heart, all the hopes of his youth, the pride of his
manhood, his schemes, his energies, his ambition!

"Oh, Gertrude!" cried he, "is it--is it thus--is there indeed no hope?"

And Gertrude now slowly recovering, and opening her eyes upon
Trevylyan's face, the revulsion was so great, his emotions so
overpowering, that, clasping her to his bosom, as if even death should
not tear her away from him, he wept over her in an agony of tears; not
those tears that relieve the heart, but the fiery rain of the internal
storm, a sign of the fierce tumult that shook the very core of his
existence, not a relief.

Awakened to herself, Gertrude, in amazement and alarm, threw her arms
around his neck, and, looking wistfully into his face, implored him to
speak to her.

"Was it my illness, love?" said she; and the music of her voice only
conveyed to him the thought of how soon it would be dumb to him forever.
"Nay," she continued winningly, "it was but the heat of the day; I am
better now,--I am well;