d never
parted with hers. Oh! how he had loved her! Would to God she had loved
him as dearly! But she had forsaken him, had separated him from her as
one who was accursed, and whose very name was a malediction. She had
exacted the uttermost farthing from him; his mother, his children, his
home, his very life, to save her name from dishonor. It seemed as if
this tarnished, discolored picture of herself, cherished through all his
misery and desolation, spoke more deeply and poignantly to her than
anything else could do. She fancied she could see him, the way-worn,
haggard, weather-beaten peasant, as she had seen him last, sitting here,
with the black walls shutting him out from all the world, but holding
this portrait in his hands, and looking at it as she did now. And he had
perished on the mountains!

Suddenly all the whirl of her brain grew quiet; the swift thoughts
ceased to rush across it. She felt dull and benumbed as if she could no
longer exert herself to remember or to know anything. Her eyes were
weary of seeing, and the lids drooped over them. The light had become
dim as if the sun had already set. Her ears were growing heavy as though
no sound could ever disturb her again; when a bitter and piercing cry,
such as is seldom drawn from the heart of man, penetrated through all
the lethargy creeping over her. Looking up, with eyes that opened
slowly and painfully, she saw her husband's face bending over her. A
smile of exceeding sweetness and tenderness flitted across her face, and
she tried to stretch out both her hands towards him. But the effort was
the last faint token of life. They had found one another too late.

CHAPTER XXIV.

FOR ONE MOMENT

She had not uttered a word to him; but her smile and the tender gesture
of her dying hands had spoken more than words. He stood motionless,
gazing down upon her, and upon Phebe, who had thrown herself beside her,
encircling her with her arms, as if she would snatch her away from the
relentless grasp of death. A single cry of anguish had escaped him; but
he was dumb now, and no sound was heard in the silent hut, except those
that entered it from without. Phebe did not know what had happened, but
he knew. Quite clearly, without any hope or self-deception, he knew that
Felicita was dead.

The dread of it had haunted him from the moment that he had heard of her
hurried departure in quest of him. When he read Phebe's words, imploring
him to follow them, the rec