"I wish so much that I could leave this hope, as a legacy to you. I wish
I could leave it to Valeria. Take care of her, won't you? She is very
solitary and very sad."

"I will, I will," Hadria murmured.

"Do not turn away from the light of rational hope, if any path should
open up that leads that way. And help her to do the same. When you think
of me, let it be happily and with comfort."

Hadria was silently weeping.

"And hold fast to your own colours. Don't take sides, above all, with
the powers that have oppressed you. They are terrible powers, and yet
people won't admit their strength, and so they are left unopposed. It is
worse than folly to underrate the forces of the enemy. It is always
worse than folly to deny facts in order to support a theory. Exhort
people to face and conquer them. You can help more than you dream, even
as things stand. I cannot tell you what you have done for me, dear
Hadria." (He held out his hand to her.) "And the helpless, human and
animal--how they wring one's heart! Do not forget them; be to them a
knight-errant. You have suffered enough yourself, to know well how to
bind their wounds." The speaker paused, for a moment, to battle with a
paroxysm of pain.

"There is so much anguish," he said presently, "so much intolerable
anguish, even when things seem smoothest. The human spirit craves for so
much, and generally it gets so little. The world is full of tragedy; and
sympathy, a little common sympathy, can do so much to soften the worst
of grief. It is for the lack of that, that people despair and go down. I
commend them to you."

* * * * *

The figure lay motionless, as if asleep. The expression was one of utter
peace. It seemed as if all the love and tenderness, all the breadth and
beauty of the soul that had passed away, were shining out of the quieted
face, from which all trace of suffering had vanished. The look of
desolation that used, at times, to come into it, had entirely gone.

Hadria and Valeria stood together, by the bedside. At the foot of the
bed was a glass vase, holding a spray of wild cherry blossom; Hadria had
brought it, to the invalid's delight, the day before. There were other
offerings of fresh flowers; a mass of azaleas from Lady Engleton;
bunches of daffodils that Valeria had gathered in the meadows; and old
Dodge had sent a handful of brown and yellow wallflower, from his
garden. The blind had been raised a few inches, so a