ntly she saw the stiffened
disfigured corpse which yet she felt had once been something she had
loved with passion, laid reverently upon a stretcher, its irons
loosened and cast away, and then covered with a great cloak. Then the
sea, the beach, the white moon faded and waved and receded. Molly's
soul went back to her body again, while blessed tears fell one by one
from her hot eyes. She breathed; her limbs relaxed; round the tired
brain came, with a soft hush like that of gentle wings, dark oblivion.

Bending over her, for he was aware that for good or evil the crisis
was at hand, the physician saw moisture bead upon the suddenly
smoothed brow, heard a deep sigh escape the parted lips. And then with
a movement like a weary child's she drew her arms close and fell
asleep.

* * * * *

Having laid his friend to his secret rest, deep in the rock of
Scarthey, where the free waves that his soul had revelled in would
beat till the world's end, Sir Adrian returned to Pulwick in the early
morning, spent with the long and heavy night's toil--for it had taxed
the strength of even three men to hollow out a grave in such a soil.
On the threshold he was greeted by the physician.

"How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of the messengers of
glad tidings!" From afar, by the man's demeanour, he knew that the
tidings were glad. And most blessed they were indeed to his ears, but
to them alone not strange. Throughout every detail of his errand his
mind had dwelt rather with the living than the dead. What he had done,
he had done for her; and now, the task achieved, it seemed but natural
that the object for which it had been undertaken should have been
achieved likewise.

But, left once more with her, seeing her once more wrapt in placid
sleep, whom he had thought he would never behold at rest again save in
the last sleep of all, the revulsion was overpowering. He sat down by
her side, and through his tears gazed long at the lovely head, now in
its pallor and emaciation so sadly like that of his dead love in the
sorrowful days of youth; and he thanked heaven that he was still of
the earth to shield her with his devotion, to cherish her who was now
so helpless and bereft.

And with such tears and such thoughts came a forgetfulness of that
anguish which in him, as well as in her, had for so long been part of
actual existence.

When Tanty entered on tiptoe some hours later, she saw her niece
mot