'She died last night.'
Jerry dropped into a chair. Death! Rosita!—a creature so instinct with the life of this world that it was impossible to conceive her in the life of which death is the portal.
'Did she—' He shuddered.
'No! She never rallied from the shock of that night. Her father has been here to ask me to forgive the dead. My God! I shall not forgive myself!' Pryor cried, with an anguish none the less intense for the faintness of the voice which uttered it.
Jerry had covered his face, and the other stared enviously at the tears that slipped through his fingers.
'Time is up!' the surgeon exclaimed from outside the closed door.
The eyes of the two men met wistfully.
'I have deserved no favor from you,' Pryor muttered; 'neither is it for my sake that I entreat you to continue silent. There will be no further inquiry into the matter, as the surgeon tells me that I shall recover. So the garrison must be satisfied only with conjecture as to my temporary madness and your magnanimity.'
'It is you who are magnanimous!'
'I loved her; I persecuted her! The death she desired for me was mercy compared to the life which is all the atonement I can make to her memory.'