Now, as heretofore, Cecil was incapable of resisting any one of his expressed wishes or commands; besides this, physical exhaustion was beginning to overcome her; and she, too, felt that it was time to go. She leaned down, without speaking, and their lips met in a long, passionate kiss. So little of vitality lingered in Royston's, that they remained still icy-cold under the pressure of these ripe, red roses. "I will come again, early," she whimpered. The last relics of a strength that _had_ been superhuman passed into the lingering pressure of the hand that bade her tenderly farewell. Half an hour later the surgeon came to Royston Keene. All that night, shrieks and groans, and other sounds through which human agony finds a vent, had been ringing in his ears, till they were weary of the din; but the silence of that chamber struck the visitor yet more painfully. He looked for a second gravely at the motionless figure; and laid his ear against the lips; no breath issued thence that would have stirred a feather; then he drew very gently the sheet over the dead man's face,--a quiet, steadfast face,--that even in the death-throe had retained its proud, placid calm. When Cecil Tresilyan saw that same sight the next morning, she did not scream or faint. Neither then nor afterward did she prove herself unworthy of her haughty lover, by demonstrating or parading her sorrows. Many others besides her have taken for their motto, "The heart knoweth its own bitterness;" and have carried it out to the end unflinchingly. Verily, they have their reward. If there is little comfort on this side the grave, and only vague hope beyond it, it is something to escape condolence. We follow her fortunes no farther. It is needless to give all the details of the hospital service which occupied her till the conclusion of the war set her free; and we will not seek to penetrate into the retreat in the Far West where she is dwelling still. The gray manor-house guards its secrets well, though it has witnessed in its time sorrows and sins that might have wrung a voice from granite. Conscious of many broken hearts and blasted hopes, is the home of the Tresilyans of Tresilyan. I confess to a certain regret, as that graceful figure vanishes from the stage that never was worthy of her queen-like presence. Was it in dream-land that I saw the original of the character and face that I have endeavored, thus roughly, to portray? Perhaps so. But there are visions so near akin to realities, that one's brain grows dizzy in trying to disentangle the two.