"I have ruined your life, I know, and now it is too late--too late to make amends. Still, the best amends I could make would be to free you from myself--and that will soon be the case, Lauraine. Hush! Do you suppose I believe what those fools said to-day--that a man cannot tell when his end is near? I shall not plague you any longer--and you may be happy--yet." "Don't say that," entreats Lauraine, kneeling beside him, and taking the hand he extends so feebly. "There is every hope now; the worst is over. You are only weak, and that makes you dispirited about yourself." He shakes his head. "I know; I know. Promise me one thing. You will not leave me; you will stay with me to the end. Last night I had a dream. I thought I was alone--all alone, and it was all black and dark, and you had left me; and look where I would there were fiends grinning at me, and all my past sins seemed a burning fire upon my soul. It was horrible. Bad as I am, and have been, say you won't forsake me till the end, Lauraine; it is some comfort to have a good woman's prayers. I can feel that at last." "I will not leave you, do not fear," Lauraine assures him earnestly. "But promise, child," he says restlessly, "promise." And with a great wonder, but most gentle earnestness, she promises. Another hour. She kneels there still. He has fallen into a fitful doze, from which he starts from time to time, to be reassured only by the pressure of her hand--murmur from her lips. Another hour. The darkness of the night creeps on, slowly, wearily enough. The prayers her lips have framed are hushed now. He sleeps more calmly, more tranquilly, than he has done yet. Another hour. The Sister who relieves her comes softly in. She holds something in her hand, which she gives to Lauraine. For a second's space, as her eyes rest on the little yellow paper, Lauraine grows faint with a great and unaccountable dread. Then she opens the envelope and reads the message within. "They say there is no hope. If you can by any means leave Sir Francis, do come here. His one prayer is for a sight of you before he dies." The paper flutters from her hand. She does not speak or move, only stands there as if frozen to stone. "I must go, I must go!" she says in her heart. "Dying! Oh, my love, my love! Are you leaving me thus? Will God not have pity on you?" Mechanically, like one in a dream, she moves away; she scarcely knows whither she is going. Only that one impulse is in her mind--to fly to Keith's side at last; to bid him farewell on earth as never had she thought to bid it; to kiss for the last time those eyes that she seemed to see before her even now--tender, triumphant, agonized, beseeching, as had been his words! As her hand is on the door a faint sound reaches her ears, and pierces through the mists that cloud her brain as though its feeble utterance were a trumpet's blast. It is her husband's voice.