he memory of John Burrill sunk in oblivion.
I see Sybil Lamotte coming slowly back to life and hope and happiness,
under the kind blue Maryland skies. I see Mrs. Lamotte, her pride
softened and chastened, and a look of serene content upon her face. And
I see Ray Vandyck making his way southward some day, and standing before
Sybil with his heart in his eyes. I see--"

"You see enough. Leave Ray and Sybil face to face; you and I can guess
the rest. Do you see Doctor Clifford Heathercliffe resuming his practice
in W----, as if nothing had happened? For that's what his newly
appointed tyrant has bidden him do. Do you see a certain fair lady,
transformed into Lady Heathercliffe by and by, and sailing away over the
seas to bewilder the dwellers of Heathercliffe Towers, with the
brightness of her eyes and, in spite of the Diamond Coterie, to blaze
forth upon the 'nobility and gentry' of Hampshire, in all the splendor
of the Wardour diamonds? All this shall come to pass, beloved; and,
since it has gained me the fairest, bravest, truest wife in Christendom,
I can even rejoice in the persecutions and the hatred of the Diamond
Coterie.

"If John Burrill had not mistaken me for Herbert, on the night when the
feud began, he might now be living, perhaps, and you and I be far apart;
so, at the last, Herbert Heathercliffe, in his grave, has done me a
service. I do look like him, Conny, and it's small wonder Burrill knew
me for a Heathercliffe, and made capital out of my altered name. But all
that is past. My darling, we have learned our hard lesson, now we have
only to forgive the dead and the erring, to forget the shadows and
sorrows of the past, and to say, 'God bless our friends in need; God
bless Bathurst, king of his kind; God bless the O'Mearas--God bless the
beautiful darling who outwitted the diamond Coterie, and who wears the
Wardour diamonds, and the Wardour honor with regal grace.'"

THE END.

End of Project Gutenberg's The Diamond Coterie, by Lawrence L. Lynch

*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE DIAMOND COTERIE ***

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