upon her neck. 'I am sure he loved me--I know
he loved me,' muttered she, half aloud. 'I have never seen in any eye the
same expression that his wore as he lay that morning in the grass. It was
not veneration, it was genuine adoration. Had I been a saint and wanted
worship, there was the very offering that I craved--a look of painful
meaning, made up of wonder and devotion, a something that said: take what
course you may, be wilful, be wayward, be even cruel, I am your slave.
You may not think me worthy of a thought, you may be so indifferent as to
forget me utterly, but my life from this hour has but one spell to charm,
one memory to sustain it. It needed not his last words to me to say that my
image would lay on his heart for ever. Poor fellow, _I_ need not have been
added to his sorrows, he has had his share of trouble without _me_!'

It was some time ere she could return to the letter, which ran thus:--

'MADEMOISELLE KOSTALERGI,--You once rendered me a great service--not alone
at some hazard to yourself, but by doing what must have cost you sorely. It
is now _my_ turn; and if the act of repayment is not equal to the original
debt, let me ask you to believe that it taxes _my_ strength even more than
_your_ generosity once taxed your own.

'I came here a few days since in the hope that I might see you before I
leave Ireland for ever; and while waiting for some fortunate chance, I
learned that you were betrothed and to be married to the young gentleman
who lies ill at Kilgobbin, and whose approaching trial at the assizes is
now the subject of so much discussion. I will not tell you--I have no right
to tell you--the deep misery with which these tidings filled me. It was no
use to teach my heart how vain and impossible were all my hopes with regard
to you. It was to no purpose that I could repeat over aloud to myself how
hopeless my pretensions must be. My love for you had become a religion, and
what I could deny to a hope, I could still believe. Take that hope away,
and I could not imagine how I should face my daily life, how interest
myself in its ambitions, and even care to live on.

'These sad confessions cannot offend you, coming from one even as humble as
I am. They are all that are left me for consolation--they will soon be all
I shall have for memory. The little lamp in the lowly shrine comforts the
kneeling worshipper far more than it honours the saint; and the love I
bear you is such as this. Forgive me if I