In the end, it was his love that cut
short his living, and no one knew what hours and days and nights of pain
he bore, till the end came. He made of his love and his death a way for
her life. She had given him all she had. He gave it back to her a
hundred-fold, but she should not know, while he lived, that her great
gift had not been to him more than she could make it, all that she
wished it might be, all that she knew it was not.

He had not far to carry his burden; but except his friend, no one should
know the heaviness of his heart, neither his father nor his mother, and
least of all, Veronica. He could not hide that he was dying, but he
could hide the cost of it, and its bitterness. After that day, his life
went from him, as the strength falls away from a ship's sails when the
breeze is softly dying on a summer's evening. In fear Veronica watched
him, and in fear she met Taquisara's eyes. In the long nights, when it
rained and there was no moon, the darkness of death's wings was in the
air, and she held her breath, alone in her dim room.

They all knew it, and none said it, though shadow answered shadow in one
another's faces when they met. It was as though another element than air
had descended amongst them, dull, unresonant, hushing word and tread.

For each life we love is a sun, in our lives that would be dark if there
were no love in them, and when it goes down to its setting in our
hearts, the last light of love's day is very deep and tender, as no
other is after it, and the passionate, sad twilight of regret deepens
to a darkness of great loneliness over all, until our tears are wept,
and our souls take of our mortal selves memories of love undying.

The end came soon, in the night, for it was his will to live that had
kept him with them so long. Taquisara was with him. One by one the
others came, hastily muffled and wrapped in dark robes, for the night
was cold and damp even within doors. One after another they came, and
they stood and knelt beside him on the right and left. He spoke to them
all,--to his father and his mother first, for he felt the tide ebbing.
With streaming eyes Veronica bent down and looked for the fading light
in his, through her fast-falling tears. And close to her his mother
stretched out weak hands that trembled with every breaking sob. His
father knelt there, burying his face against the pillow, shaking all
over, his arms hanging down loose and helpless by his sides, bent,
bowed,