"Call me if there is the slightest change," he whispered to Margaret; "you and he would rather be alone just now." She bent her head, and for the fraction of a second, her eyes met his. The misery in those deep eyes tore at his heart strings; his powerlessness to help this fellow-creature who was in such dire sorrow, hurt him, as if he had received some physical blow. Alone, in the next room, he seated himself by the fire, and tried to read a book he picked up from the table, but his thoughts refused to take in a single word of the printed page; he was conscious of nothing but the low murmur of voices from the bed he could just see through the open door. The words spoken by the two whom death was parting, he could not hear, but his heart ached intolerably for them both, for the man who was drifting into the Great Silence, for the woman who was being left behind. "One long--failure--one long chapter of infamy--and wrong," the man's whisper barely reached the woman's ears, as she bent over him. "But--you are sorry for it all now, my darling," she whispered back; "only think that you are sorry for the wrong; only think that--now." "If you--forgive--surely--God forgives?" The dim eyes looked wistfully up at hers, and she stooped with an infinitely tender gesture, to kiss his ashen face. "Surely, most surely, God forgives," she answered solemnly, the strength of her voice carrying conviction with it; "where there is a great love, there is great forgiveness, and----" "Like--yours," he interrupted dreamily; "great love--such a great love--and a great--forgiveness. I--have heaped your life with misery and shame--and still--you forgive--still you love." "Still I love," she whispered, a passion of tenderness in the low-spoken words. "Max, love--real love--can't wear out or die, whatever happens. It has always been you--only you--you entirely, my man, my whole world." At the last words, she drew his head more closely against her breast, and, bending over him, kissed him with a long lingering kiss. "Only--me--in spite--of everything?" "Only--you--sweetheart," she murmured; "only you--always." "And--that other--who has been your friend--of whom you told me?" His voice was growing fainter. "He has been--he is--my good and loyal friend," she answered; "he is nothing more to me than that. He could not ever be anything more." "Perhaps--afterwards--when--I have gone--you and he----" But she would not let him finish his halting, breathless sentence. "He and I will never be more than friends," she said, very clearly, very firmly. "I could not love another man. There is not room in my heart for anyone but you."