"So be it," replied Melissa with tears in her eyes. He smiled and nodded, signed to Diodoros to draw off his signet ring--the only thing his father had saved from the days of his wealth and freedom--and desired Melissa to keep it for his sake. Deeply moved, she put it on her finger; but Andreas pointed to the motto, and said with failing utterance: "That is your road--and mine--my father's motto: Per aspera ad astra. It has guided me to my goal, and you--all of you. But the words are in Latin; you understand them? By rough ways to the stars--Nay what they say to me is: Upward, under the burden of the cross, to bliss here and hereafter--And you too," he added, looking in his darling's face. "You too, both of you; I know it." He sighed deeply, and, laying his hand on Melissa's head as she knelt by his bed, he closed his faithful eyes in the supporting arms of Diodoros.