on
to him that she should be his one. Then gradually her strength had
become known to him, and slowly he was made aware that he must bow
to her decision. All that he wanted in all the world he must not
have,--not that the love which he craved was wanting, but because she
knew that her own doom was fixed.

She had bade him retrick his beams, and take the light and the
splendour of his sun elsewhere. The light and the splendour of his
sun had all passed from him. She had absorbed them altogether. He,
while he had been boasting to himself of his power and his manliness,
in that he would certainly overcome all the barriers, had found
himself to be weak as water in her hands. She, in her soft feminine
tones, had told him what duty had required of her, and, as she had
said so she had done. Then he had stood on one side, and had remained
looking on, till she had--gone away and left him. She had never
been his. It had not been allowed to him even to write his name, as
belonging also to her, on the gravestone.

But she had loved him. There was nothing in it all but this to which
his mind could revert with any feeling of satisfaction. She had
certainly loved him. If such love might be continued between a
disembodied spirit and one still upon the earth,--if there were any
spirit capable of love after that divorce between the soul and the
body,--her love certainly would still be true to him. Most assuredly
his should be true to her. Whatever he might do towards obeying her
in striving to form some manly purpose for his life, he would never
ask another woman to be his wife, he would never look for other love.
The black coat should be laid aside as soon as might be, so that the
world around him should not have cause for remark; but the mourning
should never be taken from his heart.

Then, when the darkness of night had quite come upon him, he arose
from his seat, and flinging himself on his knees, stretched his arms
wildly across the grave. "Marion," he said; "Marion; oh, Marion, will
you hear me? Though gone from me, art thou not mine?" He looked up
into the night, and there, before his eyes, was her figure, beautiful
as ever, with all her loveliness of half-developed form, with her
soft hair upon her shoulders; and her eyes beamed on him, and a
heavenly smile came across her face, and her lips moved as though she
would encourage him. "My Marion;--my wife!"

Very late that night the servants heard him as he opened the door and