some ill will happen thee, Margaret being gone.

"And see, with mine own hands I place my marriage lines in my bosom. Let
no living hand move them, on pain of thy curse and mine. Then when the
angel comes for me at the last day, he shall say, this is an honest
woman, she hath her marriage lines (for you know I am your lawful wife,
though Holy Church hath come between us), and he will set me where the
honest women be. I will not sit among ill women, no, not in heaven
for their mind is not my mind, nor their soul my soul. I have stood,
unbeknown, at my window, and heard their talk."

For some time she was unable to say any more, but made signs to him that
she had not done.

At last she recovered her breath, and bade him look at the picture.

It was the portrait he had made of her when they were young together,
and little thought to part so soon. He held it in his hands and looked
at it, but could scarce see it. He had left it in fragments, but now it
was whole.

"They cut it to pieces, Gerard; but see, Love mocked at their knives.

"I implore thee with my dying breath, let this picture hang ever in
thine eye.

"I have heard that such as die of the plague, unspotted, yet after death
spots have been known to come out; and oh, I could not bear thy last
memory of me to be so. Therefore, as soon as the breath is out of my
body, cover my face with this handkerchief, and look at me no more till
we meet again, 'twill not be so very long. O promise."

"I promise," said Gerard, sobbing.

"But look on this picture instead. Forgive me; I am but a woman. I could
not bear my face to lie a foul thing in thy memory. Nay, I must have
thee still think me as fair as I was true. Hast called me an angel once
or twice; but be just! did I not still tell thee I was no angel, but
only a poor simple woman, that whiles saw clearer than thou because she
looked but a little way, and that loves thee dearly, and never loved but
thee, and now with her dying breath prays thee indulge her in this, thou
that art a man."

"I will, I will. Each word, each wish, is sacred."

"Bless thee! Bless thee! So then the eyes that now can scarce see thee,
they are so troubled by the pest, and the lips that shall not touch thee
to taint thee, will still be before thee as they were when we were young
and thou didst love me."

"When I did love thee, Margaret! Oh, never loved I thee as now."

"Hast not told me so of late."

"Alas! hath love no voice but wo