Maltravers rose, but his feet were glued to the ground, his sinking
heart stood still--it was a mortal terror that possessed him. With a
deep sigh he shook off the numbing spell, and passed to the bedside of
Florence.

She sat up, propped by pillows, and as he sank beside her, and clasped
her wan, transparent hand, she looked at him with a smile of pitying
love.

"You have been very, very kind to me," she said, after a pause, and with
a voice which had altered even since the last time he heard it. "You
have made that part of life from which human nature shrinks with dread,
the happiest and the brightest of all my short and vain existence. My
own clear Ernest--Heaven reward you!"

A few grateful tears dropped from her eyes, and they fell on the hand
which she bent her lips to kiss.

"It was not here--nor amidst the streets and the noisy abodes of
anxious, worldly men--nor was it in this harsh and dreary season of the
year, that I could have wished to look my last on earth. Could I have
seen the face of Nature--could I have watched once more with the summer
sun amidst those gentle scenes we loved so well, Death would have had no
difference from sleep. But what matters it? With you there are summer
and Nature everywhere!"

Maltravers raised his face, and their eyes met in silence--it was a
long, fixed gaze, which spoke more than all words could. Her head
dropped on his shoulder, and there it lay, passive and motionless, for