the high peaks lit with the rays of intense consciousness,
and he cried aloud, and withdrew in terror at a too vivid realisation of
self. The other man wept for the daughter that had gone out of his life,
wept for her pretty face and cheerful laughter, wept for her love, wept
for the years he would live without her. We know which sorrow is the
manliest, which appeals to our sympathy, but who can measure the depth
of John Norton's suffering? It was as vast as the night, cold as the
stream of moonlit sea.

He did not arrive home till late, and having told his mother what had
happened, he instantly retired to his room. Dreams followed him. The
hills were in his dreams. There were enemies there; he was often pursued
by savages, and he often saw Kitty captured; nor could he ever evade
their wandering vigilance and release her. Again and again he awoke, and
remembered that she was dead.

Next morning John and Mrs Norton drove to the rectory, and without
asking for Mr Hare, they went up to _her_ room. The windows were open,
and Annie and Mary Austin sat by the bedside watching. The blood had
been washed out of the beautiful hair, and she lay very white and fair
amid the roses her friends had brought her. She lay as she had lain in
one of her terrible dreams--quite still, the slender body covered by a
sheet, moulding it with sculptured delight and love. From the feet the
linen curved and marked the inflections of the knees; there were long
flowing folds, low-lying like the wash of retiring water; the rounded
shoulders, the neck, the calm and bloodless face, the little nose, and
the beautiful drawing of the nostrils, the extraordinary waxen pallor,
the eyelids laid like rose leaves upon the eyes that death has closed
for ever. Within the arm, in the pale hand extended, a great Eucharis
lily had been laid, its carved blossoms bloomed in unchanging stillness,
and the whole scene was like a sad dream in the whitest marble.

Candles were burning, and the soft smell of wax mixed with the perfume
of the roses. For there were roses everywhere--great snowy bouquets, and
long lines of scattered blossoms, and single roses there and here, and
petals fallen and falling were as tears shed for the beautiful dead, and
the white flowerage vied with the pallor and the immaculate stillness of
the dead.

The calm chastity, the lonely loveliness, so sweetly removed from taint
of passion, struck John with all the emotion of art. He reproached
h