"I thank God, from my heart," Guy said, very slowly and steadily, "that, if I meet your sister hereafter, I shall not shrink before her, for I believe all I promised her has been kept. Listen! you would feel shame to your life's end thinking that you had struck a helpless, dying cripple. It is not so. You don't know what you risked. You were within arm's-length, and at close quarters I could be dangerous still. Look." He took up a small silver cup that lay near, and crushed it flat between his fingers. There was silence then; only Brandon's breath was heard, drawn hard and irregularly, as if he was trying to throw off a weight from his chest. Guy looked up at him, and said very gently, holding out his hand, "Once more, forgive me." Cyril answered in a thick, smothered voice, "I will not take your hand. I will never forgive you. But I forgive Constance; for--I understand her now." He turned on his heel, and left the room without another word, still with his head bent down, as if in thought. I gazed after him till the door shut softly. Then I looked round at Guy. His head had fallen back, and the features looked so drawn and changed that I cried out, thinking he was dead. It was only a long, long swoon. Just another scene, and my tale is told. I was reading in Guy's room one evening. He had not spoken for some time, and I fancied he was asleep. Suddenly he called to me, "Frank, come here--nearer. I have several things to say to you, and I feel I must make haste. No, don't call any one. I said farewell to my mother yesterday, and we must spare her all we can." In the presence of that sublime self-command, I _dared_ not betray my grief by any outward sign. I knelt down by his side silently. He went on in a voice that, though hollow and often interrupted by failing breath, was perfectly measured and steady. "You can only be glad that the end has come at last, though it is well I have had time to prepare myself. Am I ready now? I can not tell. Foster says I ought to hope. I trust it is not wicked to say I do not _fear_. I have sinned often and deeply; but He who will judge me created me, and He knows, too, how much I have suffered. I do not mean from _this_ (he threw his hand toward his crippled limbs with the old gesture of disdain), but from bitterness and loneliness of heart. More than all, I am sure my darling has been pleading for me ever since she died. I will not believe her prayers have been wasted.