"I think so too, guardy—but you have done no wrong. I won't believe any evil of you—you are all that is noble and good."
Edward shook his head.
"But you don't know everything, there are one or two little things which one of these days, when I am better, I will explain to you. Now go to bed, dear; this wrapper of yours is as thin as paper. In the morning I will explain—yes, explain. Good-night. Oh, by the bye, that is your rose, I expect, isn't it?" and he pointed to the bed, and Galva nodded. "I thought so, you little saint; I don't know any one else who would have put it there. Now run away, dear—-in the morning I will explain."
The girl rose and leant over the wounded man.
"Good-night, guardy dear, and God bless you," she said, and kissed him on the lips.
She turned at the door and sent him a little smile, and as she went from sight behind the curtain, a sense of desolation came over Edward Povey.
He thought it would be good to die like this—and perhaps it were better that there should be no explanation. He had taken on the mission of a man who was unable to act for himself, and he had carried it to a successful issue. All was right with the world, and he told himself that his own account was with God in His heaven.
He became mildly delirious and asked himself what more could he desire of the Romance he craved, than to pass out of life here in this chamber which might have been lifted bodily from a classic of the Middle Ages? What fitter surroundings than the tall sombre candlesticks, the praying women, the silence, and the shrouded figure on the bed? He turned his eyes to Enrico and felt a strange sense of companionship.
The pain in his chest seemed easier now, and the spasms were becoming less frequent. He lay between sleeping and waking, in a delicious state of ease. He thought tenderly of Charlotte, and wondered if she would miss him very much if she were never to see him any more.
There had been little love, little real love, between them for the past few years, but in his light-headedness Edward thought of her as he saw her that day years ago, decked out in the tawdry white finery of their wedding morning, trembling beside him at the altar of the shabby little Barnsbury church. He called to mind the girlish, shrinking figure standing on the threshold of life, and he remembered that there were tears shining through the cheap little net veil.