and by your
determination to make people die for it, you are causing fearful misery
of body, untold agony of soul, to a woman and a man whom you should have
every reason to like. Go to, Ram Lal, adept, magician, enthusiast, and
prophet, you are mistaken, like all your kind!"

"No, I am not mistaken, time will show. Moreover, I would have you
remark that the lady in question is not suffering at all, and that the
'untold agony of soul' you attribute to Isaacs is a wholesome medicine
for one with such a soul as his. And now I am going, for you are not the
sort of person with whom I can enjoy talking very long. You are violent
and argumentative, though you are sometimes amusing. I am rarely
violent, and I never argue: life is too short. And yet I have more time
for it than you, seeing my life will be indefinitely longer than yours.
Good-bye, for the present; and believe me, those two will be happier
far, and far more blessed, in a few short years hence, than ever you or
I shall be in all the unreckonable cycles of this or any future world."
Ram Lal sighed as he uttered the last words, and he was gone; yet the
musical cadence of the deep-drawn breath of a profound sorrow, vibrated
whisperingly through the room where I lay. Poor Ram Lal, he must have
had some disappointment in his youth, which, with all his wisdom and
superiority over the common earth, still left a sore place in his heart.

I was not inclined to move. I knew where Isaacs was, where he would
remain to the bitter end, and I would not go out into the world that
day, while he was kneeling in the chamber of death. He might come back
at any time. How long would it last? God in his mercy grant it might be
soon and quickly over, without suffering. Oh! but those strong people
die so deathly hard. I have seen a man--No, I was sure of that. She
would not suffer any more now.

I lay thinking. Would Isaacs send for me when he returned, or would he
face his grief alone for a night before he spoke? The latter, I thought;
I hoped so too. How little sympathy there must be for any one, even the
dearest, in our souls and hearts, when it is so hard to look forward to
speaking half-a-dozen words of comfort to some poor wretch of a friend
who has lost everything in the wide world that is dear to him. We would
rather give him all we possess outright than attempt to console him for
the loss. And yet--what is there in life more sweet than to be consoled
and comforted, and to have