end together. It matters not how few or many years love and the
beloved live their days side by side, even though their love be but the
morning and the evening of one divine day, so that there be no bereaved
and lonely to-morrow. The hour that takes one and not the other takes
with it too all the accumulated happiness of all the years. That hour
these two were to escape. Yet was there no need of haste. So long as
they might, they would sit together in the sun of life. For a little
longer they would say, "How wonderful life is!"--for a little longer
make sure of each other.

Your eyes, Isabel! Your hair, Isabel! Your dear mouth, Isabel!

A little longer.

"Shall we go to-night?"

"Not yet...perhaps to-morrow, Isabel."

But Theophil was now very near death, and he might forget if he lingered
on much more. Not wearily, but with music and singing must they pass
through the strange gate of Death.

So at length, one June evening, Isabel made for them one last little
feast,--once more wine and great grapes set out upon a little table at
Theophil's bedside; and on the table, too, was the little sealed packet
Isabel had taken from the cupboard in her desk.

Drawing her chair close up to his pillow, she poured out their wine,
and they drank it and ate the grapes together,--no happier people in
God's strange world.

As the feast neared its end, Isabel rose, and stirring the little fire
into a blaze, turned out the lamps, so that the room was lit only with
the light from the fire. Then she refilled their glasses with wine, and
breaking the seal of the little white packet, took from it a small
bottle of green crystal, the contents of which she mingled with
the wine.

Then she and Theophil held up their glasses to each other.

"Let us go deeper into the wood," she said softly.

"How wonderful life has been!" said Theophil; and the two drank, with
their eyes firm and sweet upon each other.

Then Isabel sat down again by Theophil's side, and leaning her head
against his on the pillow, she took his hand. And the room became a
heaven of silence.

Whoso would say of these two lives, "How sad!" let him consider the
quality of his own happiness; and whoso would regard the life of
Theophilus Londonderry as a failure, let him, too, consider the value of
his own success.

End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Romance of Zion Chapel [3d ed.]
by Richard Le Gallienne

*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ROMANCE