for that purpose. A faint smile flitted over her lips when she
recognized how barely perceptible was now that crimson hand which
had once blazed forth with such disastrous brilliancy as to scare
away all their happiness. But then her eyes sought Aylmer's face
with a trouble and anxiety that he could by no means account for.

"My poor Aylmer!" murmured she.

"Poor? Nay, richest, happiest, most favored!" exclaimed he. "My
peerless bride, it is successful! You are perfect!"

"My poor Aylmer," she repeated, with a more than human
tenderness, "you have aimed loftily; you have done nobly. Do not
repent that with so high and pure a feeling, you have rejected
the best the earth could offer. Aylmer, dearest Aylmer, I am
dying!"

Alas! it was too true! The fatal hand had grappled with the
mystery of life, and was the bond by which an angelic spirit kept
itself in union with a mortal frame. As the last crimson tint of
the birthmark--that sole token of human imperfection--faded from
her cheek, the parting breath of the now perfect woman passed
into the atmosphere, and her soul, lingering a moment near her
husband, took its heavenward flight. Then a hoarse, chuckling
laugh was heard again! Thus ever does the gross fatality of earth
exult in its invariable triumph over the immortal essence which,
in this dim sphere of half development, demands the completeness
of a higher state. Yet, had Alymer reached a profounder wisdom,
he need not thus have flung away the happiness which would have
woven his mortal life of the selfsame texture with the celestial.