He was kneeling, with his head bowed down on Helen's hand, that he held fast, when the first words were spoken.
"I felt sure you would come," she murmured. "I have been so still, and patient, and obedient—only that I might live long enough for this. I heard you, when you rode up, through all the wind and the rain. I am so glad—so glad. I can die easily now. I could never have rested in my grave if we had not said—'Good-bye.'"
Wyverne tried twice to speak steadily, but there came only a miserable, broken moan.
"Ah! forgive—forgive! God knows, I thought I was right in keeping away. I did it for the best."
The thin, transparent fingers of the hand that was free wandered over his brow, and twined themselves in his drenched hair, with a fond, delicate caress.
"I know you did, Alan. I was wrong—I, who would have risked all the sin and the shame. But I have suffered so much, that I do hope I shall not be punished any more. See—I can thank you now for standing firm, and holding me up too. And, dear, I know how good and faithful you have been from the very beginning. I know about those letters, and all the truth. I am content—more than content. I have had all your love—is it not so? You will look at my picture sometimes, and though she was wilful and wicked, no woman, however good or beautiful, will win you away from your own dead Helen. Ah! it hurts me to hear you sob. I feel your tears on my wrist, and they burn—they burn."
Let us draw the curtain close. Even where sympathy is sure, it is not lightly to be paraded—"the agony of man unmanned." It was not long before Wyverne recovered self-control. They spoke no more aloud; but there were many of those low, broken whispers, half of whose meaning must be guessed when they are uttered, but which are remembered longer than the most elaborate sentences that mortal tongue ever declaimed.
For some minutes Helen's eyes had been closed. Suddenly, though not a feature was distorted, Alan saw a terrible change sweep over her face, and rose to call in assistance. It seemed as if she divined his purpose, and wished to prevent it. The weak clasp tightened, for an instant, round his fingers, the weary eyelids lifted, enough to give passage to one last, loving look, and the slow syllables were just barely audible—
"This once—only once more."
He understood her, and, stooping down, laid gently on the poor pale lips his own—almost as white and cold. Then, for a brief space, there was a great stillness—a stillness as of Death. An awful sound broke the silence—a dull, smothered cry, between groan and wail, that haunted the solitary hearer to her dying day—a cry wrung from the first despair of a broken-hearted man, who, henceforth, was to be alone for evermore.