sinking frame? And who shall love thee as I love; who
see thee as I have seen; who pray for thee in gratitude and tears as I
have prayed? Oh, Albert, so little am I jealous of you, so little do I
think of myself in comparison, that I could close my eyes happily on the
world if I knew that what I could be to thee another will be!"

"Gertrude," said Trevylyan, and lifting up his colourless face, he gazed
upon her with an earnest and calm solemnity, "Gertrude, let us be united
at once! If Fate must sever us, let her cut the last tie too; let us
feel that at least upon earth we have been all in all to each other;
let us defy death, even as it frowns upon us. Be mine to-morrow--this
day--oh, God! be mine!"

Over even that pale countenance, beneath whose hues the lamp of life so
faintly fluttered, a deep, radiant flush passed one moment, lighting up
the beautiful ruin with the glow of maiden youth and impassioned hope,
and then died rapidly away.

"No, Albert," she said sighing; "no! it must not be. Far easier would
come the pang to you, while yet we are not wholly united; and for my own
part I am selfish, and feel as if I should leave a tenderer remembrance
on your heart thus parted,--tenderer, but not so sad. I would not wish
you to feel yourself widowed to my memory; I would not cling like a
blight to your fair prospects of the future. Remember me rather as a
dream,--as something never wholly won, and therefore asking no fidelity
but that of kind and forbearing thoughts. Do you remember one evening
as we sailed along the Rhine--ah! happy, happy hour!--that we heard from
the banks a strain of music,--not so skilfully played as to be worth
listening to for itself, but, suiting as it did the hour and the scene,
we remained silent, that we might hear it the better; and when it died
insensibly upon the waters, a certain melancholy stole over us; we felt
that a something that softened the landscape had gone, and we conversed
less lightly than before? Just so, my own loved, my own adored
Trevylyan, just so is the influence that our brief love, your poor
Gertrude's existence, should bequeath to your remembrance. A sound,
a presence, should haunt you for a little while, but no more, ere you
again become sensible of the glories that court your way!"

But as Gertrude said this, she turned to Trevylyan, and seeing his
agony, she could refrain no longer; she felt that to soothe was to
insult; and throwing herself upon his breast, th