were
quite clear. He could recognize his friends, and talk with them quite
composedly; cry or complaint never once issued from those rigid lips.
They sent him down to Scutari at last, not with any hope of his
recovery, but wishing to insure him all available comforts in his dying
moments. It was a rough passage (even on invalids the cruel Euxine had
little mercy) this, and the pain of transport through the few hundred
yards that were between the vessel and the hospital almost exhausted the
dregs of Royston's strength. When they laid him down on the bed allotted
to him, in a small room of the main ward, of which he was to be the sole
tenant, none of the surgeons could have told if they were dealing with
life or death. Work was so heavy on their hands at that dreadful season,
that they could not devote more than a certain space of precious time to
any one patient; so after trying all means and appliances of recovery in
vain, they left Keene for a while in his swoon. It seemed as if he would
never open his eyes again. They unclosed slowly at last, still dim with
the deathly faintness; his head was dizzy and confused; and in his ears
there was a dull, droning sound, like the murmur of a distant sea. As
objects and sounds assumed more distinctness, he became aware of the
figure of a woman sitting on the ground by the side of his couch--her
head buried in her hands--rocking herself ever to and fro, and never
pausing in her low, heart-broken wail. If old tales speak truth, such a
figure might be seen in dark corners of haunted houses; and such a wail
might echo at dead of night through chambers conscious of some fearful
crime. Instinct more than reason revealed to Royston the truth.

The lips that under the thrusts of Russian lances, and through all
subsequent tortures, had guarded so jealously the secret of his agony,
could not repress a groan as they syllabled the name of--Cecil
Tresilyan.

It was so. The brilliant beauty who for two seasons had ruled the world
in which she moved so imperiously--insatiate of conquest, and defying
rivalry--the delicate _aristocrate_ who from her childhood had been used
to every imaginable luxury, and had appreciated them all--was found
again, here, in the gray robe of a Sister of Charity, content to endure
real, bitter hardships, and to witness daily sights from which
womanhood, with all its bravery, must needs recoil. The motives that had
urged her to such a step would be hard indeed to de