"Why should I fear to die?" said Dolores, when Philip tried to encourage her by hopes in which he himself had not the slightest confidence. "Death has terrors only for those who leave some loved one behind them; but when I am gone, who will be left to mourn for me? Antoinette? Have I not for a long time been the same as dead to her? I can leave the world without creating a void in any heart, without causing any one a pang. Hence I can, without regret, go to seek the eternal rest for which I have sighed so long." "Have you truly longed for death?" asked Philip. "I have seen so many loved ones fall around me," replied Dolores, "my eyes have witnessed so many sorrows, I have suffered so much, and my life since my happy childhood has been so unspeakably lonely and sad that I have often and often entreated God to recall me to Himself." "But, Dolores, if you had only listened to me when I pleaded in vain, if you had but placed your hand in mine, what misery we should have been spared." "It would not have averted our misfortunes." "No; but we might have borne them together, and after our sorrows found consolation in each other." "I could not be your wife." "Is it true, then, that you do not love me?" Dolores made no answer. Emboldened by the solemn calmness of these moments which were, as they supposed, ushering them into eternity, Philip continued: "Whenever I pressed my suit, you pleaded my father's wishes as an excuse for not listening to my prayers. To gratify a foolish ambition he desired me to marry Antoinette. Ah, well! my father's will no longer stands between us; and the engagement that binds me to her is broken by the changed situation in which we find ourselves. We are free now in the shadow of death. Will you not tell me the truth? Will you not open your heart to me as I have opened mine to you?" Dolores listened, her glowing eyes riveted upon Philip's face, her bosom heaving with emotion. The words; "We are free now in the shadow of death," rang in her ears. She felt that she could not refuse her lover the last joy and consolation that he claimed; and that she, whose past had been one long sacrifice of her happiness and of her hopes, had a right to reveal the secret so long buried in her soul. Gently, almost solemnly, these words fell from her lips: "Listen, Philip, since you ask me for the truth, now, at this supreme hour, I have always loved you as I love you now; and I love you now as ardently as I am beloved!" There was so much tenderness in her manner that Philip sprang up, his eyes sparkling with rapture.