Edward, the strong, the stern, the self-relying Edward, suffered more. His faith was as firm, but his hopes were less vivid; a vague remorse agitated him; Mr. Lacy's words to him on the day of their first interview had sown a seed of self-reproach in his heart which had wrought painfully since. Had not her face been so divinely serene, and her spirit so full of hope and of peace that it tempered the agony of his, he would have been still more miserable. Life, which to her appeared short, seemed to him so long; the path he was to tread so lonely; the hope he was to cherish so distant; the world as it is, so dreary; the world to come, so mysterious. One day that she seemed a little better, a shade stronger, than usual, he passionately kissed her pale cheek, and whispered, "You will not leave me, Ellen,--you will not die?" "I _cannot_ live," she answered; "Edward, dearest, I ought not to live, I have suffered too much, too acutely, to raise my head again, and meet what all must meet with in this world of sin and of sorrow. Believe me, Edward, my lot has been wisely ordered. I bless God, who in his boundless mercy has gently laid me down to die here at your side, your hand in mine, your words of love in my ears; they will follow me to the last, and 'When my failing lips grow dumb--when thought and memory flee,' the consciousness that you are near me will remain, and I shall die as I have lived--no, no, not as I have lived--my life has been dreadful, and my death is not." She hid her eyes with her thin transparent hands, and a slight contraction for an instant wrinkled her brow. The vision of past sufferings had risen up before her; she remembered what she had gone through and trembled. But as she turned towards Edward the expression of mute anguish in his face affected her suddenly and deeply. She threw her arms around his neck, and cried, "I would stay if I could, Edward, but it is too late; the spring is broken, the light is quenched: we must part for a while." "O God! O God!" murmured Edward, as he clasped his hands in an agony of grief and supplication. "Thou didst give her to me, and I cast her away from me. I was blind and had no mercy; now I see, and my misery is complete. Thy ways are just, but Thy judgments are dreadful!"