e went to his wife's room he found her
asleep, a vision of soft youth and charm. He stood a few moments looking
down upon her, wondering in himself at what he had done. Yet he knew
very well that it was the stirring and deepening of his whole being
produced by love that had impelled him to do it.

Next morning he told his wife.

"Do you suppose I produced _any_ effect?" he asked her anxiously. "If
she really thinks over what I said, she _must_ be touched! unless she's
made of flint. I said all the wrong things--but I _did_ rub it in."

"I'm sure you did," said his wife, smiling. Then she looked at him with
a critical tenderness.

"You dear optimist!" she cried, and slipped her hand into his.

"That means you think I behaved like a fool, and that my appeal won't
move her in the least?"

The face beside him saddened.

"Dear, dear optimist!" she repeated, and pressed his hand. He urged an
explanation of her epithet. But she only said, thoughtfully:

"You took a great responsibility!"

"Towards her?"

She shook her head.

"No--towards him!"

Meanwhile Daphne was watching beside a death-bed. On her return from her
walk she had been met by the news of fresh and grave symptoms in Mrs.
Verrier's case. A Boston doctor arrived the following morning. The
mortal disease which had attacked her about a year before this date had
entered, so he reported, on its last phase. He talked of a few
days--possibly hours.

The Boysons departed, having left cards of inquiry and sympathy, of
which Mrs. Floyd took no notice. Then for Daphne there followed a
nightmare of waiting and pain. She loved Madeleine Verrier, as far as
she was capable of love, and she jealously wished to be all in all to
her in these last hours. She would have liked to feel that it was she
who had carried her friend through them; who had nobly sustained her in
the dolorous past. To have been able to feel this would have been as
balm moreover to a piteously wounded self-love, to a smarting and bitter
recollection, which would not let her rest.

But in these last days Madeleine escaped her altogether. A thin-faced
priest arrived, the same who had been visiting the invalid at intervals
for a month or two. Mrs. Verrier was received into the Roman Catholic
Church; she made her first confession and communion; she saw her mother
for a short, final interview, and her little girl; and the physical
energy required for these acts exhausted her small store. Whenever