There is an ebb in the tide of human hope that must reach a limit. When this limit is attained there is too great weariness for any further revolt, for any protest, for anything but dull acquiescence. Slowly Alastair stripped a few of the dusky berries from the plant and held them in the hollow of his hand to Lora. Taking them, she leaned forward, looking intently upon his face, but failing to see into his eyes, because of a deeper shadow therein than that which environed them. "_Alastair_," she whispered. He made no answer; but wearily raised his hand to his mouth, and with his tongue crushed against his palate the acrid juice of the sea-grapes. "O Alastair! speak to me! speak to me!" He turned slowly. Then suddenly he put out his arms, and gathered her to his breast. "My beautiful gloom--Lora--my Rest--my Joy--O you who are my Pharais--all the Pharais I care for now or dream of--if there be indeed a pitiful God, He will have mercy upon us. If we do wrong, we sin believing that we are doing the right, the sole right thing. But sweet it is--O Lora, sweet and dear at the last, after all our dark bewildered pain, to be here and know that all is over now, and that we two go into the Silence together: and if there be any waking, that together we shall wake. _Mo ghràidh, mo mùirnean_, my dear one, what peace there is for you and me that I die thus: free from that crushing, crushing pain and darkness that has filled my brain." "Alastair! O my dear love--dearest--shall we--shall we meet again after this dreadful night? Shall there be any day for us? I cannot die--oh, I cannot die in this awful darkness ... thus.... We are both so young ... and I...." She ceased abruptly. A low splashing sound, with long-drawn suffocating surge and susurrus, told that the sea had begun to creep forward with stealthy swiftness. It was not the menace of the tide, however, that froze the words upon her lips. Alastair had begun to croon, in a drowsy, yet strained, uncertain voice, a snatch of fisher-lore. "Alastair! Alastair! Alastair!" He gave a low laugh, as he turned on his side, and with wandering fingers played idly with the sand. "Alastair!... my husband!... Beloved ... Alastair!... Oh, say farewell to me at the least.... Do not turn from me!" "It called--called--called: and she cried to me, Come, my Belovèd: and then I knew Lora was dead. Why do you laugh at me? She is dead, I tell you: _dead, dead, dead_! She, my beautiful Lora--my dream--my joy--she who to me was Pharais itself: she is _dead_!" In the grip of supreme woe, a woman has a heroism of abnegation beyond all words to tell of it. Her grief rose within Lora as a phantom, and chilled her to the very heart and to the very brain. But with a great effort she stirred, leaned over and plucked some of the fatal fruit and swallowed it: for she had crushed in her hand the berries he had given her.