fine. The same
weariness and impatience of inaction that have been alluded to in the
case of Royston Keene may have had much to do with it; to this, perhaps,
was added a feeling of wild remorse, seeking to vent itself in
self-torturing penance, such as impelled kings and conquerors in old
days to don the palmer's gown, and macerate their bodies by fast and
scourge; there may have been, too, some vague, unacknowledged longing to
seize the last chance of seeing her lost love once again. Might she not
tend _him_ as she nursed the other wounded, without adding to the weight
of her sin? If she ever entertained such an idea, her punishment may
well have atoned for her offense, when she came suddenly and unprepared
into that sick-chamber, and looked upon the mangled wreck lying
senseless there.

Royston spoke first. "What brought you here?" If it was possible that he
could feel any thing like terror, surely the hollow, tremulous voice
betrayed it then.

Cecil Tresilyan sprang to her feet as if an electric shock had moved
her, and stood gazing at him with her great, desolate, tearless eyes;
all her misery could not make them hard or haggard, nor dispel their
marvelous enchantment. Royston marked the impulse that would have drawn
her to his side; and threw out one weak hand to warn her off; with the
other he tried to cover his own scarred, ghastly face. "Don't come near
me," he muttered; "I can't bear it." Her woman's instinct fathomed his
meaning instantly: he thought that even _she_ must shrink from him. She
laughed out loud (for her brain was almost turning) as she knelt down
and raised his head on her arm, and smoothed his matted hair, and kissed
the death-damp from his forehead, murmuring between the caresses, "You
dare not keep me from you. Do you think that _I_ fear you, my own--my
own!"

The glory of a great triumph--grand, even if sinful--lighted up the face
of the dying man; and intense passion made even his voice strong and
steady. "I believe this is better than the paradise we dreamed of in the
island of the Greek Sea."

Without a moment's pause the sweet, sad voice replied, "Yes, it is
better. _Then_ I should have died first, and hopelessly. _Now_ there is
no guilt between us that may not be forgiven."

Silence lasted till Royston gathered energy to speak again.

"You remember the glove? See--I have not parted with it yet." He drew
from his breast a case of steel links hung round his neck by a chain: it
held