said Trevylyan, humbly, "I have wronged you; but
Gertrude is an excuse for any crime of love; and now listen to my last
prayer,--give her to me, even on the verge of the grave. Death cannot
seize her in the arms, in the vigils of a love like mine."

Vane shuddered. "It were to wed the dead," said he. "No!"

Trevylyan drew back, and without another word, hurried away; he returned
to the town; he sought, with methodical calmness, the owner of the piece
of ground in which Gertrude had wished to be buried. He purchased it,
and that very night he sought the priest of a neighbouring church,
and directed it should be consecrated according to the due rite and
ceremonial.

The priest, an aged and pious man, was struck by the request, and the
air of him who made it.

"Shall it be done forthwith, sir?" said he, hesitating.

"Forthwith," answered Trevylyan, with a calm smile,--"a bridegroom, you
know, is naturally impatient."

For the next three days, Gertrude was so ill as to be confined to her
bed. All that time Trevylyan sat outside her door, without speaking,
scarcely lifting his eyes from the ground. The attendants passed to and
fro,--he heeded them not; perhaps as even the foreign menials turned
aside and wiped their eyes, and prayed God to comfort him, he required
compassion less at that time than any other. There is a stupefaction
in woe, and the heart sleeps without a pang when exhausted by its
afflictions.

But on the fourth day Gertrude rose, and was carried down (how changed,
yet how lovely ever!) to their common apartment. During those three days
the priest had been with her often, and her spirit, full of religion
from her childhood, had been unspeakably soothed by his comfort. She
took food from the hand of Trevylyan; she smiled upon him as sweetly as
of old. She conversed with him, though with a faint voice, and at broken
intervals. But she felt no pain; life ebbed away gradually, and without
a pang. "My father," she said to Vane, whose features still bore their
usual calm, whatever might have passed within, "I know that you will
grieve when I am gone more than the world might guess; for I alone know
what you were years ago, ere friends left you and fortune frowned,
and ere my poor mother died. But do not--do not believe that hope and
comfort leave you with me. Till the heaven pass away from the earth
there shall be comfort and hope for all."

They did not lodge in the town, but had fixed their abode on its