"

"Nay, Guly, it may not be, I might but fall again. Let my former
self--what I have been to you for the past few months--be remembered
only as the dead; think of me but in the light of our early days, and in
that light I will once more come back to you."

"And, Arthur, you will remember me with love and kindness, letting all
the bitterness of the past drop into oblivion?"

"I will, I will--and you?"

"With love, always, with love, dear Arthur, shall this heart remember,
shall this spirit enshrine you."

"God bless you! God keep you till we meet!"

There came one long, tender, tearful embrace, and once again the
brothers parted; Arthur's footsteps falling gently on his ear, as he
stole out through the arched alley way below. Thus they met, and thus
they parted, in the same gloomy old room where they had experienced so
much joy and so much sorrow at their first outset on life's troubled
ocean.

CHAPTER XL.

"I may not love thee;
For thou art far as yon star, above me."

Guly's attack had not been a severe one, and he was once more performing
his usual duties.

One day as he sat writing, the dwarf with a chuckle made his way to his
side, and stood there on his crooked legs panting heavily.

"Hih, hih, Monsieur, God spare you yet? God spares the good. Long time,
Monsieur, since I saw you."

"Long time, indeed, Richard; I scarcely knew what had become of you; I
am glad to see you among the living."

"Mean that, Monsieur?"

"Every word of it."

"Miss me, Monsieur?"

"Truly I have."

"Good!"

"And now where have you kept yourself so long, Richard?"

"In one little hovel down town; I no put my nose out de door, fear dey
chuck me into ze ground. Bury folks dis summer sometimes all warm and
limber. I want to live till I'm dead, so I keep down. Life's as sweet to
me as others, though I am misshapen, and lame, and poor, and miserable
to look upon. Hih, hih, Monsieur, yes, life is sweet."

"And how come you to be out to-day?"

"I strolled out for one walk, hih, hih, one walk for the health of my
crutches and myself; and as I passed along, some one give me this note
for you, hih, hih, Monsieur. Goodbye! I must be going, or the undertaker
will have me stuck two feet in the ground before I get back. Goodbye.
Take care of yourself, hih!"

"Goodbye, Richard."

"Monsieur, you remember what you told me one day, long time ago?"

"What about, Richard?"

"About loving one