"But to give all your young life--all your days and thoughts and hopes to a doomed man! Think of that, Christabel! When you are happy with him to see Death grinning behind his shoulder--to watch that spectacle which is of all Nature's miseries the most awful--the slow decay of human life--a man dying by inches--not death, but dissolution! If my malady were heart-disease, and you knew that at some moment--undreamt of--unlooked for--death would come, swift as an arrow from Hecate's bow, brief, with no loathsome or revolting detail--then I might say, 'Let us spend my remnant of life together.' But consumption, you cannot tell what a painful ending that is! Poets and novelists have described it as a kind of euthanasia; but the poetical mind is rarely strong in scientific knowledge. I want you to understand all the horror of a life spent with a chronic sufferer, about whom the cleverest physician in London has made up his mind." "Answer me one question," said Christabel, drying her tears, and trying to steady her voice. "Would your life be any happier if we were together--till the end?" "Happier? It would be a life spent in Paradise. Pain and sickness could hardly touch me with their sting." "Then let me be your wife." "Christabel, are you in earnest? have you considered?" "I consider nothing, except that it may be in my power to make your life a little happier than it would be without me. I want only to be sure of that. If the doom were more dreadful than it is--if there were but a few short months of life left for you, I would ask you to let me share them; I would ask to nurse you and watch you in sickness. There would be no other fate on earth so full of sweetness for me. Yes, even with death and everlasting mourning waiting for me at the end." "My Christabel, my beloved! my angel, my comforter! I begin to believe in miracles. I almost feel as if you could give me length of years, as well as bliss beyond all thought or hope of mine. Christabel, Christabel, God forgive me if I am asking you to wed sorrow; but you have made this hour of my life an unspeakable ecstasy. Yet I will not take you quite at your word, love. You shall have time to consider what you are going to do--time to talk to your aunt." "I want no time for consideration. I will be guided by no one. I think God meant me to love you--and cure you." "I will believe anything you say; yes, even if you promise me a new lung. God bless you, my beloved! You belong to those whom He does everlastingly bless, who are so angelic upon this earth that they teach us to believe in heaven. My Christabel, my own! I promised to call you Miss Courtenay when we left Pentargon, but I suppose now you are to be Christabel for the rest of my life!" "Yes, always." "And all this time we have not seen a single seal," exclaimed Angus, gaily. His delicate features were radiant with happiness. Who could at such a moment remember death and doom? All painful words which need be said had been spoken.