He lay silent for several minutes, looking up into her face, as if he knew it was the last time, and he must fix its every lineament upon his memory before the great unknown wrapped him in its mystic folds.
At length he whispered:
“Now kiss me, dear, and go out into the fresh air. I have kept you too long; your cheeks are pale, your eyes are dim. I fear I have been selfish to keep you here so much.”
Editha stopped with a sob and kissed him upon his lips, his cheek, his eyes, his hair, with passionate fervor, and then went away, glad to be alone for a little while, that she might give vent unrestrained to her nearly breaking heart.
The sick man watched her with fond and longing eyes, as she glided from the room, and then murmured, prayerfully:
“Heaven grant that that sin may never shadow her life. Farewell, my sweet Editha—the only gleam of real happiness my life has ever known.”
When early morning came, dim and quiet, and chill with the heavy dew, the palsied limbs had grown cold and stiff; the great heart had ceased its sluggish beating; the sightless eyes were closed; the noble face had settled into peace, and the soul had passed through death’s portal and waked in Paradise.
Yes, Richard Forrester was dead; and thus his life flowed out from its mysterious urn into the great unknown.
CHAPTER V
“I SHALL KEEP MY PLEDGE”
Richard Forrester’s affairs were duly settled, and his property—an exceedingly handsome property, too—passed into the hands of Editha Dalton.