"You are too good for this rough and bitter world," said he, as his tears fell hotly on her soft and rippling hair, and thought in his heart, "Oh, why does God take her and leave me?" And he clasped her to his heart, as if by the mere strength of his love, and strength of his arms too, he might protect and keep her with him, and kissed her more tenderly than he had ever done in his lover days, for a holier emotion was in his heart now, and to him it seemed that touches of great sweetness came and went about her lips and into her unusually luminous eyes, though their expression grew more weary day by day, and there came into them also that strange, weird, and far-off look that belongs, not to this world, but to the life that is gradually ebbing away from it, and this expression Greville Hampton saw and read with acute mental agony. "God is taking me away from you, darlings," she said softly, one evening; "but you will always be true and loving to each other for my sake." Little Derval clung to his father, unable yet to realise the great sorrow that had come upon both. Why prolong this part of our story? At last all was over, and Greville, worn out with grief and long watching, was led away like a child by the curate from the chamber of death, where his Mary lay, still rarely beautiful, as a piece of sculpture, in her last repose. All seemed terribly silent in the little cottage now; the buzzing of the flies in the sunshine, and the ticking of a clock alone were heard, unless it might be a sob from old Patty Fripp in the kitchen, where she sat rocking herself to and fro, with her apron over her head, or if she moved about it was with soft and stealthy tread, as if she feared to wake someone. "Dead--gone--left him--his other self--it could not be!" he whispered in his soul, for he could not believe, in his great sorrow, that it was all happening to him. Surely it was some horrible nightmare, from which he would awake to find his little world going on as before! But day followed day, each adding fresh details to the calamity, and that of the funeral came inexorably, the closing scene of all. As one in a dream, Greville Hampton saw the episode like a grim phantasmagoria. He heard the bell tolling, and heard Mr. Laud sob, as he met the few mourners at the churchyard gate, and led the way to the grave, repeating the fine words of the burial service. Grasping his father's hand, little Derval, with a stunned look and dry eyes, dry with wonder and a great fear, saw the coffin going down--down--till it disappeared, and then a cry burst from him, for he knew that mamma was there--there in that cruel coffin which had left his sight for ever, and he began, child-like, to understand the dire and dreadful reality!