u would try to
grow better every day. Only think what it would be if, throughout all
ages, we were never to meet after to-day." She drew him closer to her,
and her voice almost failed her. "I don't believe you ever could be what
is called a very religious character. I am so weak--strong-minded as you
thought me--that I fear I have found an attraction in this fault of
yours; but you could keep from great sins, I am sure. Try and be gentler
to others first, and with every act of unselfish kindness you will have
gained something. Any good clergyman will tell you the rest better than
I. Remember how happy you will make me. I believe I shall see and know
it all. It may be hard for you, dear, but it may not be for long."

The same strange, wistful look came into her eyes again, as if shadows
of the dim future were passing before them.

Poor child! Pure as she was in principle and firm in truth, she would
have made but a weak controversial theologian; but her simple words went
straight to her hearer's heart, with a stronger power of conversion than
could have been found in the discourses of all the surpliced Chrysostoms
that ever anathematized a sinner or anatomized a creed.

Yet Guy did not answer so soon this time. When he did, he spoke firmly
and resolutely: "Indeed, indeed, I will try."

Constance nestled down on his broad chest, wearily, but with a
long-drawn breath of intense relief.

"I have said all my say," she whispered; "I have not tired you? Now I
will rest, and you shall pet me and talk to me as you used to do."

What broken sentences--what pauses of silence yet more eloquent--what
lavish, tender caresses passed between those two, over whom the shadow
of desolation was closing fast, I have never guessed, nor, if I could,
would I write them in these pages. I hold that there are partings
bitterer to bear than a father's from his child, and sorrows worthier of
the veil than those of Agamemnon.

Though Guy repressed now all outward signs of painful emotion, he
suffered, I believe, far the most of the two. It is always so with those
whom death is about to divide. The agony is unequally distributed,
falling heaviest on the one that remains behind. If the separation were
for years, and both were healthy and hopeful, very often the positions
would be reversed; but--whether it be that bodily weakness blunts the
sharp sense of anticipated sorrow, or that, to eyes bent forward on the
glories and terrors of the unknown