“It seems to me,” he said, “that she was born the victim. Clarice betrayed her, and Ronald’s love has brought her nothing but misery.” Then they discussed the story of her self-sacrifice. Kenelm understood it. He told Lord Lorriston how they had opened the box to find the document, and had found there the dagger. “This confession must have been lying near it, and Hermione took it without my knowing. She had read it and declared herself guilty in order to save him.” “She loved him well, poor child,” said Lord Lorriston. “She would have died for him,” continued Kenelm. “She would have gone, for his sake, to prison, and from the prison to the scaffold, if by doing so she might have saved him.” “She loved him dearly. His death has broken her heart,” said Lord Lorriston. “In her case death is far more merciful than life--she would have been wretched, knowing his guilt, and wretched, knowing his death. It is better as it is.” Even the father who had loved her so dearly kissed her face and murmured the same words, “It is better as it is.” The story of that last hour of her life is known to none. The doctor said she died of disease of the heart; it might be so--but those who loved her knew her heart was broken. She had taken out that strange, sad confession of his, so mingled with love of her in order to destroy it, and she died with it in her hands. What passed between her soul and God, who shall tell? Her terrible sorrow, her shame, her despair--she had to suffer it all alone; there was no one to help her bear it in that terrible hour; no one to soothe her agony; she struggled with it and died alone. The merit of the grand, self-sacrifice she would so willingly have accomplished was all her own; she had taken upon herself the burden of his guilt and been willing to suffer for it. All her sweet woman’s nature rose in rebellion against it--her true and loyal nature, that had in it no taint of anything mean or false--her delicate, sensitive, spiritual nature, that loved right and hated wrong, but she had trampled all under foot, and by reason of her great love had been willing to die the most shameful of deaths for his sake. They thought a great deal of it at the time, but in after years they thought still more. How dearly she had loved him! How great was the sacrifice she would have made for him, when for his sake she was willing to die on the scaffold to shelter his sin! The whole country round was grieved at the intelligence. People said, with tears in their eyes, they were not surprised; they would not believe in the doctor’s fable of disease of the heart--that she died because she loved Sir Ronald so well; she could not live without him. Gloom and mourning spread from place to place, for she had been loved as dearly in the cottages of the poor as in the halls of the rich. CHAPTER LV. THE REST IS PEACE.