ny difference now.'

Then Mollie crept to her brother's side.

Cyril lay very quiet; but by and by he roused himself to send a message
to Kester. And then he spoke of his father.

'Will you give him my love?' he said. 'I wanted to see more of him. I
think if I had only known him better I could have loved him.'

'I will tell him this, dear Cyril.'

'Thank you.'

And then he closed his eyes again. And as Audrey bent over him, it
seemed to her as though his face were almost perfect in that stillness.
Presently he asked his mother to come closer, and she at once obeyed
him.

'Mother,' he said pleadingly, 'you will try to give me up?'

But she made a gesture of dissent.

'I cannot; I cannot, Cyril! I do not believe I can live without you.'

'You have Mollie and Kester,' he panted, for her suppressed agitation
evidently disturbed him. 'Mother, I know what we have been to each
other.'

Then she fell on her knees with a bitter cry.

'Cyril, it is all my fault that you are lying there. Your mother has
killed you. It would not have happened but for me. My boy! my boy! I
cannot, I will not live, without you!'

'Mother.'

But Michael saw he could bear no more, and at a sign from the doctor he
raised the unhappy woman and led her from the room.

'It is too much for them both,' he said to Biddy; 'neither of them can
bear it.'

And then he saw the old woman take her mistress in her arms and cry over
her like a child.

'Biddy, I shall die too. You will bury me in my boy's grave--my boy and
me together.'

But Michael heard no more. He went back to the room just as Cyril was
asking for him.

'Burnett, will you say good-bye?' he gasped. 'I think it will not be
long now, and I have said good-bye to Mollie. Oh! this pain, doctor--it
has come back again. Can you do anything for me?'

But Dr. Abercrombie shook his head sorrowfully.

'Never mind, then; it must be borne. Burnett, God bless you for all you
have done! You will be good to her, I know'--with a glance at his
betrothed.

'I will,' returned Michael Burnett.

And then the two men grasped hands.

Cyril hardly spoke after this--his pain was too intense. But once Audrey
saw his eyes rest on her ring. 'It is still there,' she heard him
murmur. And another time he made signs that she should lay his head on
her shoulder.

'I want to die so,' he whispered. And a little later he asked her to
kiss him again.

He lay so quiet now that they thought he was goin