ave been
so much to me, for I have held in my hand the key to an everlasting
happiness--that deathless love which opens the gates to heaven; which
sanctifies life and hallows death. Oh! forgive me that I leave you, my
love! There was no other way. Only I pray that in that other world we
may meet again in the days to come, and that the music of our love may
ring once more through heart and soul. Farewell! Farewell!

CHAPTER XXXI

AN OLD MAN'S HATE

"Margharita! You have come at last. It is done, then. Say that it is
done!"

She stood quite still in the humble red-tiled sitting-room, and looked
at him with a great compassion shining out of her dark, clear eyes. He
was worn almost to a shadow, and his limbs were shaking with weakness,
as he half rose to greet her. Only his eyes were still alight and
burning. Save for them he might have been a corpse.

Something of the old passionate pity swept through her as she stood
there, but its fierceness had died away. Her heart leaped no longer in
quick response to the fire in those still undimmed eyes. She had been a
girl then, a girl with all the fierce untrained nature of her mother's
race; she was a woman now, a sad-faced, sorrowful woman. He was quick to
see the change.

"Margharita, my child, you have been ill."

Still she did not answer. Silently she knelt down by the side of his
armchair and took his withered, delicate hand in hers. A great bowl of
white hyacinths stood on a table by the window, and the air was faint
with their perfume.

"I am not ill," she said gently. "I was frightened on my way here, and
had to run. There was a fire last night at the lunatic asylum at
Fritton, and some of the mad people have escaped. I saw one of them in
the distance, and the keepers after him. They wanted me to go back, but
I would come."

He stooped down and kissed her forehead, with cold, dry lips.

"I knew that you would be here soon," he said. "My letters reached you
safely?"

"Yes."

She shuddered at the gathering strength in his tone, and the fierce
light which had swept into his face.

"It is done, child. Say that it is done!"

"No."

Something in her sad tone and subdued manner seemed to strike a note of
fear in his heart. He leaned forward, grasping the sides of his chair
with nervous, quivering fingers, and looked hurriedly into her face.

"No; you have had no chance, then? But you will have soon? Is it not so?
Soon, very soon?"

She threw her a