“No, my own one,” said Arthur, taking it from her. “What _could_ you inscribe better than that? Could any human name mark it more clearly as my own individual property? Are _you_ not mine? Are you not,” (with all the old playfulness of manner) “as Bruno would say, ‘my _very mine_’?” He bade a long and loving adieu to the Earl and to me, and left the room, accompanied only by his wife, who was bearing up bravely, and was—_outwardly_, at least—less overcome than her old father. We waited in the room a minute or two, till the sound of wheels had told us that Arthur had driven away; and even then we waited still, for the step of Lady Muriel, going upstairs to her room, to die away in the distance. Her step, usually so light and joyous, now sounded slow and weary, like one who plods on under a load of hopeless misery; and I felt almost as hopeless, and almost as wretched, as she. “Are we four destined _ever_ to meet again, on this side the grave?” I asked myself, as I walked to my home. And the tolling of a distant bell seemed to answer me, “No! No! No!” CHAPTER XVIII. A NEWSPAPER-CUTTING. _EXTRACT FROM THE “FAYFIELD CHRONICLE.”_ _Our readers will have followed with painful interest, the accounts we have from time to time published of the terrible epidemic which has, during the last two months, carried off most of the inhabitants of the little fishing-harbour adjoining the village of Elveston. The last survivors, numbering twenty-three only, out of a population which, three short months ago, exceeded one hundred and twenty, were removed on Wednesday last, under the authority of the Local Board, and safely lodged in the County Hospital: and the place is now veritably ‘a city of the dead,’ without a single human voice to break its silence._ _The rescuing party consisted of six sturdy fellows—fishermen from the neighbourhood—directed by the resident Physician of the Hospital, who came over for that purpose, heading a train of hospital-ambulances. The six men had been selected—from a much larger number who had volunteered for this peaceful ‘forlorn hope’—for their strength and robust health, as the expedition was considered to be, even now, when the malady has expended its chief force, not unattended with danger._ _Every precaution that science could suggest, against the risk of infection, was adopted: and the sufferers were tenderly carried on litters, one by one, up the steep hill, and placed in the ambulances which, each provided with a hospital nurse, were waiting on the level road. The fifteen miles, to the Hospital, were done at a walking-pace, as some of the patients were in too prostrate a condition to bear jolting, and the journey occupied the whole afternoon._