rd of the danger that you ran,
my heart rebelled against you. I cried that 'twas not just to so put a
man to torture and bind him to the rack. And then I repented and said
you did not know or you would be more gentle."

"I will be gentle now," she said, "always, your Grace, always."

"When the sun rose each day," he said, "I could not know it did not
rise upon your beauty, lying cold and still, lost--lost to me--this
time, forever."

Her fair hand covered her eyes, she shuddering a little.

"Nay, nay," she cried. "I--nay, I could not be lost to you--again. Let
us--let us pray God, your Grace, let us pray God!"

And to his heavenly rapture she put forth her arms and laid them round
his neck, her face held back that she might gaze at him with her great
brimming eyes. Indeed 'twas a wonder to a man to behold how her
stateliness had melted and she was like a yearning, clinging girl.

He gazed at her a moment, kneeling so, and all the long years rolled
away and he scarce dared to breathe lest he should waken from his
dream.

"Ah, Heaven!" he sighed, "there is so much to tell--years, years of
pain which your sweet soul will pity."

Ah, how she gazed on him, what longing question there was in her eyes!

He took from his breast a velvet case which might have held a
miniature, but did not.

"Look--look," he prayed, "at this. Tis a dead rose."

"A rose!" says she, and then starts and looks up from it to him, a
dawning of some thought--or hope--in her face. "A rose!" she uttered,
scarcely breathing it, as if half afraid to speak.

"Ah!" he cried, "I pray God you remember. When it fell from your breast
that night----"

She broke in, breathless, "The night you came----"

"Too late--too late," he answered; "and this fell at my feet, and you
passed by. No night since then I have not pressed it to my lips. No day
it has not lain upon my heart through all its darkest hours."

She took it from him--gazed down at it with stormy, filling eyes, and
pressing it to her lips, broke into tender, passionate sobbing.

"No night, no day!" she cried. "Poor rose! dear rose!"

"Beloved!" he cried, and would have folded her to his breast, kissing
her tears away which were so womanly. But she withdrew herself a
little--holding up her hand.

"Wait, your Grace; wait!" she said, as if she would say more, almost as
if she was shaken by some strange trouble and knew not how to bear its
presence. And, of a sudden, seeing this, a vague f