Guly lay upon the bed in the gloomy room up stairs, himself suddenly smitten with the fearful disease. He was alone, his only attendant having gone out to procure medicine. His thoughts were dwelling upon the sad events of the day, when suddenly the door opening into the alley was swept back with a hasty hand, and the pale figure of Arthur, robed in a dampened shroud, sank down at Guly's bedside. The boy started wildly up in bed, with a natural pang of terror darting through his heart. But the next instant, the panting voice of Arthur, faint, but in its old accustomed tones, fell upon his ear, and Guly listened in mute wonder. "Oh, Guly, oh, my brother, behold me thus strangely cast back from the grave which was yawning to receive me. I thank God I was spared the fearful doom of being buried alive! The coffin burst, the shock, the sudden rush of air restored me, and I found myself awakened from a fearful trance, sent back to life and earth. The lesson has been fearful. But my close approach to death may yet prove my salvation. Give me my clothes to robe myself while I talk to you." Guly pointed silently to the clothes which hung upon a chair, where they had been placed never to be worn more. He also extended a bottle of cordial to Arthur, bidding him drink and be strengthened. "Now, Guly," said the elder brother, as, once more robed, he bent above him, "Let me remain as one dead to you, I am going far from you; but I am a changed being; fear not for me, I shall commence a new life, and when I return, I shall not cause you to blush for me. Guly, farewell!" Guly threw himself into the extended arms, completely overcome with his emotions. "Oh! Arthur, I can scarcely realize this strange and sudden restoration; but now that God has given you back to me, do not leave me, do not desert me, stay with me; let us learn to be happy in our old love and our old ways." "Nay, Guly, it may not be, I might but fall again. Let my former self--what I have been to you for the past few months--be remembered only as the dead; think of me but in the light of our early days, and in that light I will once more come back to you." "And, Arthur, you will remember me with love and kindness, letting all the bitterness of the past drop into oblivion?" "I will, I will--and you?" "With love, always, with love, dear Arthur, shall this heart remember, shall this spirit enshrine you." "God bless you! God keep you till we meet!" There came one long, tender, tearful embrace, and once again the brothers parted; Arthur's footsteps falling gently on his ear, as he stole out through the arched alley way below. Thus they met, and thus they parted, in the same gloomy old room where they had experienced so much joy and so much sorrow at their first outset on life's troubled ocean. CHAPTER XL. "I may not love thee; For thou art far as yon star, above me."