up the very strongest
military position. Let a man once make a woman understand, or fancy,
that he knows that he is nothing to her; and confess boldly that there
is a great gulf fixed between them, which he has no mind to bridge over:
and then there is little that he may not see or do, for good or for
evil.

And therefore it was that Lucia answered gently, "I am sure you are not
well, Mr. Headley. The excitement of the night has been too much for
you."

"Do I look excited, my dear madam?" he answered quietly. "I assure you
that I am as calm as a man must be who believes that he has but a few
days to live, and trusts, too, that when he dies, he will be infinitely
happier than he ever has been on earth, and lay down an office which he
has never discharged otherwise than ill; which has been to him a
constant source of shame and sorrow."

"Do not speak so!" said Valencia, with her Irish impetuous generosity;
"you are unjust to yourself. We have watched you, felt for you, honoured
you, even when we differed from you"--What more she would have said, I
know not, but at that moment Elsley's peevish voice was heard calling
over the stairs, "Lucia! Lucia?"

"Oh dear! He will wake the children!" cried Lucia, looking at her
sister, as much as to say, "How can I leave you!"

"Run, run, my dear creature!" said Valencia, with a self-confident
smile: and the two were left alone.

The moment that Mrs. Vavasour left the room, there vanished from Frank's
face that intense look of admiration which had made even Valencia
uneasy. He dropped his eyes, and his voice faltered as he spoke again.
He acknowledged the change in their position, and Valencia saw that he
did so, and liked him the better for it.

"I shall not repeat, Miss St. Just, now that we are alone, what I said
just now of the pleasure which I have had during the last month. I am
not poetical, or given to string metaphors together; and I could only go
over the same dull words once more. But I could ask, if I were not
asking too much, leave to prolong at least a shadow of that pleasure to
the last moment. That I shall die shortly, and of this cholera, is with
me a fixed idea, which nothing can remove. No, madam--it is useless to
combat it! But had I anything, by which to the last moment I could bring
back to my fancy what has been its sunlight for so long; even if it were
a scrap of the hem of your garment, aye, a grain of dust off your feet--
God forgive me! He and His me