And again an expression of the deepest sorrow convulsed the dark, handsome face.
"She was too true and loyal to break her vow," answered Gertrude, tearfully. "I believe that the shame and sorrow of it all killed her. She was a martyr to her love."
He groaned and dropped his head upon his folded arms. There was silence, and every eye but Elinor's rested tearfully upon the low mound beneath which slumbered the poor girl who had died with the brand of the erring upon her, but who in this hour was proven guiltless and pure, as Gertrude had said, a patient martyr to affection.
"Oh, that I might have seen her even once," groaned Bertram Chesleigh, turning instinctively for comfort to the sweet, sympathetic face of Gertrude. "Oh, tell me, did she suffer in dying? Was she conscious?"
She shook her head.
"No, she passed from a quiet slumber into death. The change was so gradual we scarcely knew when she was gone."
"Gone!"
The word thrilled him with a keen and bitter pain. The sweet, child-wife he had loved so dearly was lost from his life forever. She was gone from a world that had used her harshly and coldly, to take her fitting place among the angels.
The soft wind sighing through the trees and the grass seemed to murmur her requiem: "Requiescat in pace."