be well!"

He moves toward the stone steps, and they follow him. Quickly mounting
them, he lays his hand upon the door, and, afraid to give them any more
time for reflection or dread of what may yet be in store for them,
throws it open.

At first the feeble light from their lamps fails to penetrate the
darkness of the gloomy apartment. At the cursory glance, such as they
at first cast round the room, it appears to be empty. Their hearts sink
within them. Have they indeed hoped in vain!

Dora is crying bitterly; Ethel, with her eyes fixed upon Ringwood, is
reading her own disappointment in his face, when suddenly a piercing cry
from Florence wakes the echoes round them.

She has darted forward, and is kneeling over something that even now is
only barely discernible to the others as they come nearer to it. It
looks like a bundle of clothes, but, as they stoop over it, they, too,
can see that it is in reality a human body, and apparently rigid in
death.

But the shriek that has sprung from the very soul of Florence has
reached some still living fibers in the brain of this forlorn creature.
Slowly and with difficulty he raises his head, and opens a pair of
fast-glazing eyes. Mechanically his glance falls upon Florence. His lips
move; a melancholy smile struggles to show itself upon his parched and
blackened lips.

"Florence," he rather sighs than says, and falls back, to all
appearance, dead.

"He is not dead!" cries Florence passionately. "He can not be! Oh, save
him, save him! Adrian, look up--speak to me! Oh, Adrian, make some sign
that you can hear me!"

But he makes no sign. His very breath seems to have left him. Gathering
him tenderly in her arms, Florence presses his worn and wasted face
against her bosom, and pushes back the hair from his forehead. He is so
completely altered, so thorough a wreck has he become, that it is indeed
only the eyes of love that could recognize him. His cheeks have fallen
in, and deep hollows show themselves. His beard has grown, and is now
rough and stubbly; his hair is uncombed, the lines of want, despair, and
cruel starvation have blotted out all the old fairness of his features.
His clothes are hanging loosely about him; his hands, limp and
nerveless, are lying by his side. Who shall tell what agony he suffered
during these past lonely days with death--an awful, creeping, gnawing
death staring him in the face?

A deadly silence has fallen upon the little group now gazing s