She leapt as one from the brink of the grave, called back to the solace of some infinite pain. He was there; he needed her. Without an instant’s hesitation she climbed the little balcony, and falling anyhow upon the turf beneath, rose to her feet and ran. She ran down the terrace, across the sloping sward, a small white spectre against the towering blackness of the trees. Her feet sparkled in the inky pools; the wind charged at her, and tore loose a wild strand of hair; it was a figure to haunt those glades for evermore. She ran and ran, making straight in the direction of the sound. As she skirted the plantation edge, she seemed conscious of shadowy forms swiftly glimpsing and disappearing among the trees. She heeded nothing of them, of their flittings and sibilations. Real or unreal, of what importance were they any longer in this context of death? For it was death, and the end of all things. She never doubted it; it was in her soul as she ran. That scream had shattered at one blow the whole rainbow fabric of their love’s illusion. It could not be, it could never have been, by human consent. Only by way of this agony was it possible for the heaven of their dreams to come true. Down among the flowery paths she stopped suddenly, and fell upon her knees beside him. He was lying crushed into the green border--there, in that very place where the love-in-a-mist was wont to grow so thickly. It was quiet in this sunken spot--no sound but the bubbling, it seemed, of a low spring. It came from his lungs, God pity her, and ran over his lips. “Beloved!” she sighed in a little voice; but all hopeless heart-break was in it. With the intense vision of subconsciousness she could distinguish, as surely as if it were daylight, every detail of his face. His eyes were closed; but she knew he was not dead. Would he die without recognising her? She put an arm beneath his head and tried to lift it to her bosom. “Not without one word!” she said, with a small wooing moan. “It is only you and I.” And at that, struggling back from the shadows, he raised leaden lids, and knowing her, faintly smiled. She tore a handkerchief from her breast, a little perfumed scrap of lace and cambric, and with it tried to staunch the gushing life. And then she bent her face, to catch the gasping words: “What is it, most dear, most dear?” “Believe nothing--only my deathless love.” “And mine--O, and mine!” His left arm crooked feebly a moment, and then fell. A spasm of scorn twitched his dying features: “In the back--there were three of them--and one a woman.” Again the murmur tailed off and ceased. In a numb agony she spoke the name that was only hers. “Take me with you,” she whispered, with a quivering sigh: “O, take me, take me with you!” And then suddenly and strongly he rose in her arms, and an unearthly light, great and triumphant, was in his eyes, and he spoke with a clear voice: “Sweet--in the North--in the beautiful gardens--we shall meet in three----”