“Let me give it you back,” he said. “Perhaps you won’t like to wear it now; but, when you put another ring on your finger, let this be a guard to it. That’s my fancy.”
“Oh, Lucian! Put it on—I never—never shall—”
“I think you will,” he said. “I hope you will.” He took her warm young hand, and, with his weak fingers, put on the ring, and back upon them both came the joyous moment when he had first put it on, and “all the world was young.”
“And then,” continued Lucian, “when Mr Riddell is here, and gives me my last Communion, will you come too? I remember the Sunday we were engaged—”
“Oh,” said Amethyst, “all the love went away together. But now, I will—I will—”
“There is Syl, across the garden,” said Lucian, after a moment—“He thinks—I shall be tired. He takes such care of me, he is so good to me—now he must come and take you home. Good-bye, my dear love. God bless you! I am quite happy now.”
He looked up at her, and with a sudden impulse she stooped down and kissed him, and then turning her head away, and waving Sylvester back, she fled across the garden and out of sight.
Lucian had covered his face with his hands, it was flushed and burning, as all that was left of life in him surged up and rebelled against the approaching hand of death.
“In much pain, dear boy?” said Sylvester anxiously, after a minute.
“More—more than I knew,” said Lucian, with panting breath, then, with a look which Sylvester never forgot, he whispered—“But it’s quite right,—Syl.”