It was when speech had returned that Glynne sat near him one evening, watching his white face with its grey silken hair, and the heavy beard which had been spared by the doctor when his patient was at the worst. Neither had spoken for some time, but gazed, each with a strange yearning, in the other's eyes. For it had been coming for days, and instinctively they knew that it must come that night--the end, and with it a long farewell, perhaps only to meet again upon the further shore. Glynne was the first to speak, and it was in a whisper. "Moray, when I knew that you were stricken down, I prayed that I might come to you, and struggle with the deadly shade to save your life." He looked at her with a wistful gaze, and his lips trembled as he closed his eyes. "My work is done now. Forgive me for coming. I cannot touch your hand again." "No," he said sadly; and his voice was so low and deep that she bent forward to hear his words, and lowered her face into her hands that she might not let him see the agony and despair working, as she bent to her unhappy fate. For there had been some vague, undefined idea floating through her brain, that he might have said one gentle, sorrowing, pitying sentence before she went--he, the man whom she knew now to have loved her tenderly and well. But he had acquiesced so readily. That simple little "no" had gone to her heart like a stiletto thrust. She, degraded as she was, could not take him by the hand again. Then she started up to gaze at him wildly and reproachfully, for he repeated the negative, and added,-- "Better, may be, dear, that I had died, as perhaps I shall before long. But, before you go, take with you the knowledge that I loved you dearly from the first. Ah, Glynne, what might have been!" "Yes, what might have been!" she said sadly. "Better too that I had died, as I have often prayed that I might; but I was mad to offer such a prayer, for my work in life was not at an end. I did not know then. I know now, and my task is done." He was silent then, and she rose to go. "Good-bye," she whispered. "We shall never meet again." She had glided to the door, and her hand was raised to the fastening, when he cried faintly,-- "Stop!" A low sigh escaped her lips. Was he, then, going to speak one loving word to soften the bitterness of the last farewell? Her eyes brightened at the thought, and she turned and took a step or two towards him, with outstretched hands, which fell to her sides as she uttered a groan full of the despair at her heart. "No, no: don't touch me," he cried wildly. "You--innocent and sinned against--cannot take me by the hand again. Listen, Glynne, I must tell you before you go. It will be our secret, dear, for the confession to another, and my punishment, would mean fresh suffering and agony to you." "I--I do not understand you," she faltered, as she looked at him wildly.