"I am afraid Aunt Helena is right," he said faintly. "I must confess to feeling exhausted, and I know you need a night's sleep, so that I may have you with me all day to-morrow. For a few hours, dear love, let me send you away."
She rose at once with a parting caress, and made him comfortable among his pillows.
"Good-night," she whispered. "Try to sleep, and be strong to talk to me to-morrow. Oh!" she breathed as she turned away, "if the elixir of life were only not a fable—if the days of miracles were not past, if he only might be restored to us, how happy we all could be!"
Lady Helena heard her, and shook her head.
"It is too late for that," she said; "when suffering is prolonged beyond a certain point there is but one remedy—death. If your miracle could take place and he be restored, he has undergone too much ever to live on and be happy and forget. There can only be one ending to such a year as he has passed, and that ending is very near."
Edith went to her room—one of the exquisite suite that had been prepared for her a year before. She was occupying it at last, but how differently from what she had ever thought. She remembered this night twelve months so well, the strange vigil in which she had spent in taking her farewell of those letters and that picture, and waiting for her wedding-day to dawn.
To-night she slept, deeply and soundly, and awoke to find the October sun shining brightly in. Was he still alive? It was her first thought. Death might have come at any moment. She arose—slipped on a dressing gown, and rang the bell.
It was Inez who answered in person.
"I heard your bell," she said as she kissed her good-morning, "and I knew what you wanted. Yes, he is still alive, but very weak and helpless this morning. The excitement and joy of last night were almost too much for him. And he remembers what anniversary this is."
Edith turned away—some of the bitterness, some of the pain of loss she knew he was enduring filling her own heart.