“You will give them to him, Aimée?” she said. “I think he will come some day; but if he does not, you must keep them yourself. I should not like people to read them--afterwards. Love-letters won't stand being read by strangers. I have often laughed and told him ours would n't. I am going to write a last one, however, this afternoon. You are to give it him, with the 'dead' letter--but they are all dead letters, are they not?” “Dolly,” said Aimée, with a desperate effort, “you speak as if you were sure you were--going.” There was a silence, and then a soft, low, tremulous laugh,--the merest echo of a laugh. Despite her long suffering Dolly was Dolly yet. She would not let them mourn over her. “Going,” she said, “well--I think I am. Yes,” half reflectively, “I think I must be. It cannot mean anything else,--this feeling, can it? It was a long time before I quite believed it myself, Aimée, but now I should be obliged to believe it if I did not wish to.” “And do you wish to, now?” That little silence again, and then-- “I should like to see Grif,--I want Grif,--that is all.” She managed to write her last love-letter after this, and to direct it and tie it with the letter which had returned to her,--the “dead” letter. But the effort seemed to tire her very much, and when all was done and her restless excitement had died out, she looked less like herself than ever. She could talk no more, and was so weak and prostrate that Aimée was alarmed into summoning Miss MacDowlas. But Miss MacDowlas could only shake her head. “We cannot do anything to rouse her,” she said. “It is often so. If the end comes, it will come in this way. She feels no pain.” That night Aimée wrote to those at home. They must come at once if they wanted to see Dolly. She watched all night by the bedside herself; she could not have slept if she had gone to her own room, and so she remained with Dolly, watching her doze and waken, starting from nervous sleeps and sinking into them again. “There will not be many nights through which I can watch,” she said to herself. “Even this might be the last.” And then she turned to the window, and cried silently, thinking of Grif, and wondering what she should say to him, if they ever met again. How could she say to him, “Dolly is dead! Dolly died because you left her!” Another weary day and night, and then the old change came again. The feverish strength seemed to come once more. Dolly would be propped up, and talk. Before very long Aimée began to fancy that she had something she wished to say to Miss Mac-Dowlas. She followed her movements with eager, unsatisfied eyes, and did not seem at ease until she sat down near her. Then when she had secured her attention the secret revealed itself. She had something to say about Grif.