"Yes, she will be very angry, but you need not care, dear," Mrs. Campbell answers faintly. "Leslie will take you away from here. You will never have to slave for the Clevelands any more." The door opens suddenly and softly. A tall, handsome man comes into the room, followed by a clerical-looking individual. "Oh, Leslie, you are come back again," Mrs. Campbell breathes, joyfully. "I am glad, for I cannot last but a few minutes longer." "Not so bad as that, I hope," he says, gently, advancing to the bedside; then his hand touches lightly the golden head bowed on the pillow. "Is my little bride ready yet?" he asks. The girl starts up with a pale, bewildered face. "Is it to be now?" she asks, blankly. "I thought--I thought----" But Mrs. Campbell, drawing her quickly down, checks the half protest with a feverish kiss. "Yes, dear, it is to be now," she whispers, weakly. "I cannot die until I know that you will be safe from the Clevelands. It is my dying wish, Vera." "Then I am ready," Vera answers, turning a pale and strangely-solemn face on the waiting bridegroom. The bridegroom is pale, too. His handsome face gleams out as pale as marble in the flickering glare of the lamps, the dark hair tossed carelessly back from the high, white brow, gleaming like ebony in the dim light. The dark, mustached lips are set in a grave and thoughtful line, the dark blue eyes look curiously into the bride's white face as he takes her passive hand and draws her forward toward the waiting minister. It is a strange bridal. There are no wedding-favors, no wedding-robes, no congratulations. The beautiful marriage words sound very solemn there in the presence of the dying, and the girlish bride turns silently from the side of the new-made husband to seek the arms of her dying mother. "Bless you, my Vera, my little darling," the pale lips whisper, and then there falls a strange shadow on the room, and a strange silence, for, with the murmured words of blessing, the chords of life have gently parted in twain, and Mrs. Campbell's broken heart is at rest and at peace in that Heavenly peace that "passeth all understanding." CHAPTER II. The long, wintry night wanes slowly. Vera's own loving hands have robed the dead for the rest of the grave. She has gone away now to the solitude of her own little chamber under the eaves, leaving Leslie Noble keeping watch beside the loved lost one. She has forgotten for a moment the brief and solemn words that gave her away to be a wife in her early innocent girlhood; she remembers only that the one creature that loved her, and whom she loved, is dead. Crushed to earth by her terrible loss, Vera flings herself face downward on the chilly, uncarpeted floor, and lies there mute, moveless, tearless, stricken into silence by the weight of her bitter despair. Who that has lost a mother, the one true heart that loves us truly and unselfishly of all the world, but can sympathize with the bereaved child in her deep despair.