ou a sharer
in my forsaken wealth. Only this I beg of you. Take this gem and keep it
always for my sake. No--do not look at it in that way. Do not consider
its value. It is to recall one who will often think of you, for you have
been a great deal to me in this month."

"I would I might have been more," I said, and it was all I could say,
for my voice failed me.

"Think of me," he continued, and the bright light shone through his face
in the dusk, "think of me, not as you see me now, or as I was this
morning, bowed beneath a great sorrow, but as looking forward to a
happiness that transcends this mortal joy that I have lost, even as the
glory of things celestial transcends the glory of the terrestrial. Think
of me, not as mourning the departed day, but as watching longingly for
the first faint dawn of the day eternal. Above all, think of me not as
alone but as wedded for all ages to her who has gone before me."

Ram Lal laid his hand on my arm and looked long into my eyes.

"Farewell for the present, my chance acquaintance," he said, "and
remember that in me you have a friend. The day may come when you too
will be in dire distress, beyond the skill of mere solitude and books to
soothe. Farewell, and may all good things be with you."

Isaacs laid his two hands on my shoulders, and once more I met the
wondrous lustre of his eyes, now veiled but not darkened with the last
look of his tender friendship.

"Good-bye, my dear Griggs. You have been the instructor and the genius
of my love. Learn yourself the lessons you can teach others so well. Be
yourself what you would have made me."

One last loving look--one more pressure of the reluctant fingers, and
those two went out, hand in hand, under the clear stars, and I saw them
no more.

THE END.

Footnote 1: Sir Gore Ousely, _Notices of the Persian Poets_.

Footnote 2: A fact, as is well known.

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