ugh his soul. The fearful truth
broke slowly upon him that he _must_ lose her: that the days
of trembling hope and fear, which he had gone through, since
he had taken her back to his heart, must give way to that
desolating certainty--to that inevitable anguish against which
the feelings rebel while the understanding acquiesces. There
was no secret between them now; they knew they must part; and
her remaining days were spent in a long and deep farewell. She
was more resigned than he was--she was nearer Heaven; she had
suffered and struggled, and through much tribulation had
reached the haven at last; life's last wave had carried her to
the shores of eternity, and death for her bruised heart had a
balm, for her weary spirit a rest, which life could never
yield. She gazed upon him hour after hour, and her very soul
seemed to speak out of her dying eyes;

"And it seemed as the harps of the skies had rung.
And the airs of Heaven played round her tongue,"

as she spoke of that death which had lost its sting--of that
grave which had lost its victory; for in the might of her
earthly love--in the ardour of her living faith, she discerned
the shortness of time, the fulness of eternity; life seemed to
her now but a little span, and she could say in the spirit of
David, "I may not stay with thee, but thou wilt come to me."

Edward, the strong, the stern, the self-relying Edward,
suffered more. His faith was as firm, but his hopes were less
vivid; a vague remorse agitated him; Mr. Lacy's words to him
on the day of their first interview had sown a seed of
self-reproach in his heart which had wrought painfully since.
Had not her face been so divinely serene, and her spirit so
full of hope and of peace that it tempered the agony of his,
he would have been still more miserable. Life, which to her
appeared short, seemed to him so long; the path he was to
tread so lonely; the hope he was to cherish so distant; the
world as it is, so dreary; the world to come, so mysterious.
One day that she seemed a little better, a shade stronger,
than usual, he passionately kissed her pale cheek, and
whispered, "You will not leave me, Ellen,--you will not die?"

"I _cannot_ live," she answered; "Edward, dearest, I ought not
to live, I have suffered too much, too acutely, to raise my
head again, and meet what all must meet with in this world of
sin and of sorrow. Believe me, Edward, my lot has been wisely
ordered. I bless God, who in his bo