outskirts, and within sight of the Neckar; and from the window they saw
a light sail gliding gayly by till it passed, and solitude once more
rested upon the waters.

"The sail passes from our eyes," said Gertrude, pointing to it, "but
still it glides on as happily though we see it no more; and I feel--yes,
Father, I feel--I know that it is so with _us_. We glide down the river
of time from the eyes of men, but we cease not the less to _be_!"

And now, as the twilight descended, she expressed a wish, before she
retired to rest, to be left alone with Trevylyan. He was not then
sitting by her side, for he would not trust himself to do so, but with
his face averted, at a little distance from her. She called him by his
name; he answered not, nor turned. Weak as she was, she raised herself
from the sofa, and crept gently along the floor till she came to him,
and sank in his arms.

"Ah, unkind!" she said, "unkind for once! Will you turn away from me?
Come, let us look once more on the river: see! the night darkens over
it. Our pleasant voyage, the type of our love, is finished; our sail may
be unfurled no more. Never again can your voice soothe the lassitude of
sickness with the legend and the song; the course is run, the vessel is
broken up, night closes over its fragments; but now, in this hour, love
me, be kind to me as ever. Still let me be your own Gertrude, still let
me close my eyes this night, as before, with the sweet consciousness
that I am loved."

"Loved! O Gertrude! speak not to me thus!"

"Come, that is yourself again!" and she clung with weak arms caressingly
to his breast. "And now," she said more solemnly, "let us forget that we
are mortal; let us remember only that life is a part, not the whole,
of our career; let us feel in this soft hour, and while yet we are
unsevered, the presence of The Eternal that is within us, so that it
shall not be as death, but as a short absence; and when once the pang of
parting is over, you must think only that we are shortly to meet again.
What! you turn from me still? See, I do not weep or grieve, I have
conquered the pang of our absence; will you be outdone by me? Do you
remember, Albert, that you once told me how the wisest of the sages of
old, in prison, and before death, consoled his friends with the proof
of the immortality of the soul? Is it not a consolation; does it not
suffice; or will you deem it wise from the lips of wisdom, but vain from
the lips of love?"