cry of ' Murderer! " They thought the
lady had spoken feverishly in her death-
trance. I alone knew from whence that cry
had come.

But I would not yield, and I never quailed,
nor feared for the result. I knew the power
I had to battle with, and I knew, too, the
powers I wielded. They saved her. The blood
circulated again through her veins, the faintness
gradually dispersed, the smitten side
flung off its paralysis, and the blue ring
faded wholly from her limbs.

The lady recovered under my care. And
care, such as mothers lavish on their
children I poured like life-blood on her. I
knew that her pulses beat at my bidding,
I knew that I had given her back her life,
which else had been forfeit, and that I was
her preserver. I almost worshipped her.
It was the worship of my whole being—the
tide into which the pent-up sentiment of
my long years of unloving philanthropy
poured like a boundless flood. It was my
life that I gave her—my destiny that I saw
in her—my deliverer from the curse of sin,
as I had been hers from the power of death.
I asked no more than to be near her, to see
her, to hear her voice, to breathe the same air
with her, to guard and protect her. I never
asked myself whether I loved as other men
or no; I never dreamed of her loving me
again. I did not even know her name nor
her condition: she was simply the Lady to
me—the one and only woman of my world.
I never cared to analyse more than this.
My love was part of my innermost being,
and I could as soon have imagined the
earth without its sun as my life without the
lady. Was this love such as other men
feel? I know not. I only know there were
no hopes such as other men have. I did
not question my own heart of the future:
I only knew of love—I did not ask for
happiness.

One day I went to see her as usual. She
was well now; but I still kept up my old
habit of visiting her for her health. I sat by
her for a long time this day, wondering,
as I so often wondered, who it was that
she resembled, and where I had met her
before, and how; for I was certain that
I had seen her some time in the past.
She was lying back in an easy chair—how
well I remember it all!—enveloped in a
cloud of white drapery. A sofa-table was
drawn along the side of her chair, with one
drawer partly open. Without any intention
of looking, I saw that it was filled
with letters, in two different handwritings,
and that two miniature cases were lying
among them. An open letter, in which lay
a tress of sun-bright hair, was on her
knee. It was written in a hand that made
me start and quiver. I knew the writing,
though at the moment I could not recognise
the writer.

Strongly agitated, I took the letter in my
hand. The hair fell across my fingers. The
darkness gathered close and heavy, and there
burst from me the self-accusing cry of
"Murderer!"

"No, not murdered," said the lady,
sorrowfully "He was killed by accident. This
letter is from him—my dear twin-brother
Herbert—written the very day of his death.
But what can outweigh the blessedness of
death while we are innocent of sin!"

As she spoke, for some strange fancy she
drew the gauzy drapery round her head. It
fell about her soft and white as foam. I
knew now where I had seen her before, lying
as now with her sweet face turned upward to
the sky; looking, as now, so full of purity
and love: calling me then to innocence as
now to reconciliation. Her angel in her
likeness had once spoken to me through the
waves, as Herbert's spirit now spoke to
me in her.

"This is his portrait," she continued, opening
one of the cases.

The darkness gathered closer and closer.
But I fought it off bravely, and kneeling
humbly, for the first time I was able to
make my confession. I told her all. My
love for Herbert; but my fierce fury of
temper: my sin, but also how unintentional;
my atonement. And then, in the depth of
my agony, I turned to implore her forgiveness.

"I do," she said, weeping. "It was a
grievous crime—grievous, deadly—but you
have expiated it. You have repented in
deed by self-subjugation, and by unwearied
labours of mercy and good among your fellow
men. I do forgive you, my friend, as
Herbert's spirit would forgive you. And,"
in a gayer tone, " my beloved husband, who
will return to me to-day, will bless you too
for preserving his wife, as I bless you for
preserving me to him."

The darkness fell from me as she kissed
my hand. Yet it still shades my life; but as
a warning, not as a curse—a mournful past,
not a destroying present. Charity and active
good among our fellow men can destroy the
power of sin within us; and repentance in
deeds—not in tears, but in the life-long
efforts of a resolute man—can lighten the
blackness of a crime, and remove the curse of
punishment from us. Work and love: by
these may we win our pardon, and by these
stand out again in the light.

This day is published, for greater convenience, and
cheapness of binding,
THE FIRST TEN VOLUMES
OF
HOUSEHOLD WORDS,
IN FIVE HANDSOME VOLUMES,
WITH A GENERAL INDEX TO THE WHOLE.
Price of the Set, thus bound in Five Double instead of Ten
Single Volumes, £2 10s. 0d.