come back here. In my waking moments your name shall never willingly
pass my lips again. I will say it for the last time now. _Philip,
Philip, Philip_, whom I chose to love out of all the world, I pray God
that He will take me, or deaden the edge of what I suffer, and that He
may never let my feet cross your path or my eyes fall upon your face
again."

In another second she had passed out of the room and out of his life.



That night, or rather just before dawn on the following morning,
Hilda, knowing that her end was very near, sent for her husband.

"Go quickly, doctor," she said. "I shall die at dawn."

The doctor found him seated in the same spot where Maria Lee had left
him.

"What, more misery!" he said, when he had told his errand. "I cannot
bear it. There is a curse upon me--death and wickedness, misery and
death!"

"You must come if you wish to see your wife alive."

"I will come;" and he rose and followed him.

A sad sight awaited him. The moment of the grey dawn was drawing near,
and, by his wife's request, a window had been unshuttered, that her
dimmed eyes might once more look upon the light. On the great bed in