The waning moonlight ran around the frosted chain and pearl beads, as if some spirit hand had swiftly told every Pater and Ave of them in expiation of that rash act. Then the waters caught them, and they slipped twinkling down through the green deeps.
Margaret left the deck, and went down to where Mr. Lewis walked to and fro, keeping his mournful watch. His face was pale, and his eyes heavy. He looked perfectly grief stricken.
"What is the matter?" he asked. "Has any one spoken to you?"
"No; but I have been thinking." She leaned on his arm, and looked down upon the casket at their feet. "That man thought that I wanted him to marry me. Is it only a wicked pride, I wonder, that rises up in revolt when I remember it? Should not there be a better name? I could not be angry then, because he was dying; and I forgot it till the next night, after all was over, when I went in to see him. I was full of grief then, and had some silly notion, just like me! of telling him, and that he would hear. The wind had blown the hair over his forehead, and just as I started to put it back, I recollected, and caught my hand away and left him. I had nothing to say to him then, nor since. What did he want to kill my friendship so for? His memory would have been sweet to me.
It is poisoned." "Well," Mr. Lewis said, with a sort of despair, "women are queer beings, and you are ultra womanish. One day you will risk your life for a man, and the next you will look with scorn upon him in his coffin. A better name than pride, do you say? I call it the most infernal kind of pride. Where is your gratitude, girl, toward the man who never had any but a kind word and thought for you? He arranged everything for you, that first night, just as much as he did for Dora, and made me promise that you should never want for a friend while I live. You ought to humble yourself, Margaret, and beg his pardon."
"Do you think so?" she asked faintly. "I hope that you are right. I would rather blame myself than him."
"Of course I think so!" he answered indignantly. "Did he ever give you one unkind look, even? Did he ever prefer any one else before you? Did he ever allow any one to speak against you in his presence? I never, before nor since, saw him take fire as he did once when some one criticised you to him."
"Did he? Did he?" exclaimed Margaret, kneeling by the casket, and laying her cheek to the cold wood. "Ah! that was indeed friendship!"
In that softened mood she reached home.
When death, in visiting a household, is unaccompanied by sordid cares, the lost one being necessary to our hearts alone; when the living have no remorse for the past and no terror for the future of their friend; when the silent face is peaceful; and when the earth that opens to receive it is warm and full of life, like the bosom of a mother where a sleeping child hides its face—then death is more beautiful than life.