‘Not mine,’ I murmured in an agony. ‘Lionne, tell me—but once before we part—say that you love me!’ ‘My legacy,’ she whispered, with a faint smile. ‘_Yes_, Robert; with all my heart—as my life, better than my life.’ ‘O God, spare her!’ I cried aloud. ‘O God, take me!’ she said herself; ‘take me from misery and disappointment to where there are no tears.’ ‘And how am I to live without you?’ I exclaimed. Her dark eyes met mine reproachfully. ‘Janie—your child,’ she gasped. ‘I—I could have been—nothing.’ ‘You are all the world to me!’ I exclaimed, passionately. She lay quiet for a few moments, and then she opened her eyes wide, and fixed them upon mine. ‘_Promise_,’ she gasped—‘Janie—to love—to love—to comfort—to—’ She fell back in my arms, and for a few minutes I watched with inexpressible pain the convulsive working of her beautiful features. ‘Better—so much better—that I should go,’ she whispered, after a long pause; and as she said the words she went. It was the corpse of Margaret Anstruther, and of all my earthly happiness, that I laid down upon the sodden rags and piece of carpet. * * * * * I have no heart to write down the details of what followed. For two days that cruel flood pervaded Mushin-Bunda before it showed symptoms of subsiding; and before that time arrived, several hundred lives (chiefly natives) had been sacrificed. We lost nearly all our furniture, though several pieces were left stranded in the compound when the waters retired; amongst others, the writing-table which held my diary. But what avails it to speak of personal loss at such a time as this? My poor wife, from the combined effects of cold, fatigue, and terror, had a very serious illness, from which at one time I almost feared she might not recover; and on her return to health I brought her to Madras, from which place I write. She is now herself again; and I am in good health and tolerable spirits; and—and Margaret sleeps alone in a shady corner of the English burying-ground at Mushin-Bunda. No, not alone! God is my witness that my heart sleeps with her! _Note added ten years later._ I have been looking over my old diaries to-day, and burning most of them; but something within me seems to forbid that I should destroy these few pages which record the history of my brief acquaintanceship with Margaret Anstruther. They are the only remembrance I have left of her. Ten years have waxed and waned since the dark night she died; what have they left me? A wife whom I love and in whom I trust; who, I may safely say, I would exchange for no woman living; who has brought me children, loving and docile as herself, and very dear to me; a happy peaceful home (no longer in the East); a moderate competence; and a name which I trust no man holds lightly. And to these many blessings I add contentment, and wonder what more good on this earth a mortal could expect.