“Are not my days numbered, aunt?” cried Mildred, with a sudden burst of passion. “Was not my heart broken when I left this house last year to go into loneliness and exile, abandoning a husband I adored? That parting was my deathblow. In all the long dreary days that have gone by since then my hold upon life has been loosening. You might have saved me that agony. You might have sent me back to my home rejoicing—and you would not. You cared more for your own pride than for my happiness. You might have made your daughter’s life happy—and you would not. You cared more for the world’s esteem than for her welfare. As you sacrificed her, your daughter, you have sacrificed me, your niece. I know that I am doomed. Just when God has given me back the love that makes life precious, I feel the hand of death upon me, and know that the hour of parting is near.”
“I have been a sinner, Mildred; but I have suffered—I have suffered. You ought not to judge me. You have never known shame.”
That last appeal softened Mildred’s heart. She went over to her aunt’s chair, and leant over her and kissed her.
“Let the past be forgotten,” she said, “and let us part in love.”
And so, a quarter of an hour later, they parted, never to meet again on earth.
Miss Fausset died in the early winter, cut off by the first frost, like a delicate flower. She had made no change in the disposal of her property, and her death made Mildred Greswold a very rich woman.
“My aunt loved the poor,” said Mildred, when she and her husband spoke of this increase of wealth. “We are both so much richer than our needs, George. We have lived in sunshine for the most part. When I am gone I should like you to do some great thing for those who live in shadow.”
“My beloved, I shall remain upon this earth only to obey your will.”
He lived just long enough to keep his promise. The Greswold Hospital remains, a monument of thoughtful beneficence, in one of the most wretched neighbourhoods south of the Thames; but George Greswold and his race are ended like a tale that is told.