citement she scarcely knew where she was or what
she did. Still she hesitated. Then she soliloquised: "It is his will,
and what he wishes shall be done. He loved me and worked for me. How
am I going to reward him? In order that my wretched body may be fed and
warmed for a few miserable years, shall I let his soul be left out in
cold and darkness till the end of time--till all the sins which may be
committed on reading those writings have been expiated, or passed away,
perhaps, for ever? Nafzawi, who was a pagan, begged pardon of God and
prayed not to be cast into hell fire for having written it, and implored
his readers to pray for him to Allah that he would have mercy on him."
[653]

Still she hesitated. "It was his magnum opus," she went on, "his last
work that he was so proud of, that was to have been finished [654] on
the awful morrow that never came. If I burn it the recollection will
haunt me to my dying day," and again she turned over the leaves.

Then for the third time Sir Richard stood before her. Again he sternly
bade her burn the manuscript, and, having added threatenings to his
command, he again disappeared.

By this time her excitement had passed away, and a holy joy irradiated
her soul. She took up the manuscript, and then sorrowfully, reverently,
and in fear and trembling, she burnt it sheet after sheet, until the
whole was consumed. As each leaf was licked up by the fire, it seemed
to her that "a fresh ray of light and peace" transfused the soul of her
beloved husband.

That such were the facts and that the appearance of her husband was not
mere hallucination, Lady Burton stiffly maintained until her dying day.
She told Mr. T. Douglas Murray [655] that she dared not mention the
appearances of her husband in her letter to The Morning Post [656] or
to her relatives for fear of ridicule. Yet in the Life of her
husband--almost the closing words--she does give a hint to those who
could understand. She says: "Do not be so hard and prosaic as to suppose
that our dead cannot, in rare instances, come back and tell us how it is
with them." [657]

That evening, when Miss Letchford, after her return, entered Sir
Richard's room, she saw some papers still smouldering in the grate.
They were all that remained of The Scented Garden. On noticing Miss
Letchford's reproachful look, Lady Burton said, "I wished his name to
live for ever unsullied and without a stain."

174. Discrepancies in Lady Burton's Story.