‘Why, God,’ thought Marian, ‘has a missing hand This moment; Lucy wants a drink, perhaps. Let others miss me! never miss me, God!’ So Marian sate by Lucy’s bed, content With duty, and was strong, for recompense, To hold the lamp of human love arm-high To catch the death-strained eyes and comfort them, Until the angels, on the luminous side Of death, had got theirs ready. And she said, When Lucy thanked her sometimes, called her kind, It touched her strangely. ‘Marian Erle, called kind! What, Marian, beaten and sold, who could not die! ’Tis verily good fortune to be kind. Ah, you,’ she said, ‘who are born to such a grace, Be sorry for the unlicensed class, the poor, Reduced to think the best good fortune means That others, simply, should be kind to them.’ From sleep to sleep while Lucy slid away So gently, like the light upon a hill, Of which none names the moment that it goes, Though all see when ’tis gone,—a man came in And stood beside the bed. The old idiot wretch Screamed feebly, like a baby overlain, ‘Sir, sir, you won’t mistake me for the corpse? Don’t look at _me_, sir! never bury _me_! Although I lie here, I’m alive as you, Except my legs and arms,—I eat and drink, And understand,—(that you’re the gentleman Who fits the funerals up, Heaven speed you, sir,) And certainly I should be livelier still If Lucy here ... sir, Lucy is the corpse ... Had worked more properly to buy me wine: But Lucy, sir, was always slow at work, I shan’t lose much by Lucy. Marian Erle, Speak up and show the gentleman the corpse.’ And then a voice said, ‘Marian Erle.’ She rose; It was the hour for angels—there, stood hers! She scarcely marvelled to see Romney Leigh. As light November snows to empty nests, As grass to graves, as moss to mildewed stones, As July suns to ruins, through the rents, As ministering spirits to mourners, through a loss, As Heaven itself to men, through pangs of death, He came uncalled wherever grief had come. ‘And so,’ said Marian Erle, ‘we met anew,’ And added softly, ‘so, we shall not part.’ He was not angry that she had left the house Wherein he placed her. Well—she had feared it might Have vexed him. Also, when he found her set On keeping, though the dead was out of sight, That half-dead, half-live body left behind With cankerous heart and flesh,—which took your best And cursed you for the little good it did, (Could any leave the bedrid wretch alone, So joyless, she was thankless even to God, Much less to you?) he did not say ’twas well, Yet Marian thought he did not take it ill,— Since day by day he came, and, every day, She felt within his utterance and his eyes A closer, tenderer presence of the soul, Until at last he said, ‘We shall not part.’