She threw herself on her knees when Amethyst left her. "Oh, God!" she whispered, "let me not look back--let me look forward up, up to Thee!" There was a great outcry, when Wilfred stirred up his sisters to go back with him on the next day to Nice. The girls were angry, and declared that Una was a heartless flirt and had led him on; but Wilfred would not hear a reproach cast at her, and went up to the Leighs' villa to bid Lucian farewell, and to tell his story. It was a bad day with Lucian, indeed each day began to show failing strength, and the shadow lay so heavily on all around him, that it was no wonder that Wilfred Jackson's affairs had never been guessed at. Lucian could not talk to him, but lay and listened while Sylvester put in occasional questions, and shortened the interview as much as possible. Then it came over Wilfred, that he was bidding his friend farewell for the last time, and he felt how much he had let himself be diverted from his state by a new interest. He muttered something, he hardly knew what, as he squeezed Lucian's hand, but it ended in "never forgetting the Rockies." "All right," said Lucian, "and don't forget either that--I said--that I hoped, when you're dying, you may thank God for your love, as I do-- though we've neither of us been lucky." Wilfred was utterly overcome, and could only hurry away with another hand-squeeze. Lucian felt that the first of the final partings had come for him, and his breath came a little quickly. "You'll stay with me, Syl, won't you?" he whispered. "Why yes, of course, dear boy, that's all settled, long ago. Now let me read you to sleep. Then, if Amethyst comes by and by, you will be able to see her." Amethyst was the bright spot in the sorrowful household. She was loving to Mrs Leigh, listening to her sorrow, and trying to give her all the care which after so long a strain she was beginning to need, and cheering the poor young girls as they grew too sorrowful to care for their usual amusements, while in her ways with Lucian she showed the most absolutely simple and unaffected tenderness, thinking of nothing but how to give him pleasure. That the pleasure was sometimes not easily known from pain, Lucian hid from all eyes but Sylvester's keen ones, and, as he grew weaker, the inevitable longings mercifully sank away, or were bravely offered up with all the other sufferings of his failing life, and he took the joy as simply as it was given. Lady Haredale, as usual, had adapted herself to circumstances. She took the greatest interest in "dear Lucian," never grudged Amethyst's intercourse with him, and, as she took occasion to tell Sylvester, "felt that the past was entirely blotted out." "She may," Lucian had said bluntly, when this speech was reported to him, "but, as far as she is concerned, I don't, and I never shall."