Lonely, without her mistress, Minnie also prepared for sleep; and that night Bernard's letter was placed beneath _her_ pillow, and her dreams were of him. Della, as she had hoped, dreamed of General Delville. All night long was his noble face before her, wearing that radiant expression which had illuminated it when he bade God bless her. Never afterwards, in all her waking hours, whether in joy or gloom, light or darkness, did Della cease to remember him as she dreamed of him there with the halo of that blessing circling him and her. Lightly as he had seemed to give her up, it had cost the General a more severe struggle than Della had imagined. He had truly _loved_ her, old as he was, and had not loved lightly; but he could not take to his heart the heartless wife which she had frankly admitted she must be if he married her; and Della had, unwittingly, skillfully touched a tender chord, when she made the appeal to his feelings which she did. He had felt the force of her reasoning, and had been delighted with her frankness and her confidence; though it pained him to relinquish her, he was too much a soldier to display his wounds; and, though he parted from her nominally a _friend_, he was never more her lover than when he that afternoon called her his child and bade her adieu. CHAPTER XXVI. Many and sharp the numerous ills Inwoven with our frame! More pointed still we make ourselves Regret, remorse, and shame. And man, whose heaven-erected face The smiles of love adorn, Man's inhumanity to man Makes countless thousands mourn. Burns. "Wretch!" cried Wilkins, striking at Quirk with his brawny fist, as he rose from the prostrate form of Guly--"Wretch, you have killed him!" and, seizing the offender by the collar, with the united force of foot and hand he hurled him into the street. The two other young men, who had drunk less freely of the wine, and were less excited, passed out also, expressing to Wilkins their regret at the unfortunate occurrence. Locking and barring the door, the head clerk hurried back to Guly's side, and lifted him gently in his arms. With the tender care of a mother, he bore him to his own bed and smoothed the golden curls from the wounded temple, as he laid him softly on the pillow. The old gush of love had swept back to Arthur's heart when he saw his brother fall at his side, and with throbbing pulse he implored Wilkins to fly for a physician leaving him to watch by Guly's pillow.