With eager, tremulous anxiety and aching suspense I would watch for the first light breath from her lips, the first faint tinge of carmine in her cheek, that always heralded her coming back to life. And when she opened her eyes and smiled, and stretched her long young limbs in the joy of waking, what transports of gratitude and relief! [Illustration: "WAITING"] Ah me! the recollection! * * * * * At last a terrible unforgettable night arrived when my presentiment was fulfilled. I awoke in the little lumber-room of "Parva sed Apta," where the door had always been that led to and from our palace of delight; but there was no door any longer--nothing but a blank wall.... I woke back at once in my cell, in such a state as it is impossible to describe. I felt there must be some mistake, and after much time and effort was able to sink into sleep again, but with the same result: the blank wall, the certainty that "Magna sed Apta" was closed forever, that Mary was dead; and then the terrible jump back into my prison life again. This happened several times during the night, and when the morning dawned I was a raving madman. I took the warder who first came (attracted by my cries of "Mary!") for Colonel Ibbetson, and tried to kill him, and should have done so, but that he was a very big man, almost as powerful as myself and only half my age. Other warders came to the rescue, and I took them all for Ibbetsons, and fought like the maniac I was. When I came to myself, after long horrors and brain-fever and what not, I was removed from the jail infirmary to another place, where I am now. I had suddenly recovered my reason, and woke to mental agony such as I, who had stood in the dock and been condemned to a shameful death, had never even dreamed of. I soon had the knowledge of my loss confirmed, and heard (it had been common talk for more than nine days) that the famous Mary, Duchess of Towers, had met her death at the ------ station of the Metropolitan Railway. A woman, carrying a child, had been jostled by a tipsy man just as a train was entering the station, and dropped her child onto the metals. She tried to jump after it but was held back, and Mary, who had just come up, jumped in her stead, and by a miracle of strength and agility was just able to clutch the child and get onto the six-foot way as the engine came by. She was able to carry the child to the end of the train, and was helped onto the platform. It was her train, and she got into a carriage, but she was dead before it reached the next station. Her heart, (which, it seems, had been diseased for some time) had stopped, and all was over. So died Mary Seraskier, at fifty-three. * * * * *