sters of
ourselves; now,--" he turned his face from me; though gathering twilight
had already veiled its expression, he turned it yet more away, as he added
--"a man died of the plague last night!"

He spoke in a smothered voice, then suddenly clasping his hands, he
exclaimed, "Swiftly, most swiftly advances the last hour for us all; as the
stars vanish before the sun, so will his near approach destroy us. I have
done my best; with grasping hands and impotent strength, I have hung on the
wheel of the chariot of plague; but she drags me along with it, while, like
Juggernaut, she proceeds crushing out the being of all who strew the high
road of life. Would that it were over--would that her procession
achieved, we had all entered the tomb together!"

Tears streamed from his eyes. "Again and again," he continued, "will the
tragedy be acted; again I must hear the groans of the dying, the wailing of
the survivors; again witness the pangs, which, consummating all, envelope
an eternity in their evanescent existence. Why am I reserved for this? Why
the tainted wether of the flock, am I not struck to earth among the first?
It is hard, very hard, for one of woman born to endure all that I endure!"

Hitherto, with an undaunted spirit, and an high feeling of duty and worth,
Adrian had fulfilled his self-imposed task. I had contemplated him with
reverence, and a fruitless desire of imitation. I now offered a few words
of encouragement and sympathy. He hid his face in his hands, and while he
strove to calm himself, he ejaculated, "For a few months, yet for a few
months more, let not, O God, my heart fail, or my courage be bowed down;
let not sights of intolerable misery madden this half-crazed brain, or
cause this frail heart to beat against its prison-bound, so that it burst.
I have believed it to be my destiny to guide and rule the last of the race
of man, till death extinguish my government; and to this destiny I submit.

"Pardon me, Verney, I pain you, but I will no longer complain. Now I am
myself again, or rather I am better than myself. You have known how from my
childhood aspiring thoughts and high desires have warred with inherent
disease and overstrained sensitiveness, till the latter became victors. You
know how I placed this wasted feeble hand on the abandoned helm of human
government. I have been visited at times by intervals of fluctuation; yet,
until now, I have felt as if a superior and indefatigable spirit had taken