Helen tenderly supported her as they left the carriage. Soon they were within the house; Kathleen was waiting with a wildly beating heart for some one to come to them. But when Ralph's mother came to them, Kathleen was beyond speech. It was Helen who had to prefer the request that they should see Ralph--"Friends, old and dear friends," she said, in excuse. The gentle, gray-haired lady looked in wonder at the beautiful, weeping girl, the fairest she had ever beheld. Her heart went out to her at those tears. "They are for my boy," she thought, tenderly. But she hesitated, for the doctors had forbidden any one to enter the room. "He knows no one. He has spoken but twice, and then just to utter a name," she said, looking doubtfully at the two fair supplicants. "A name?" whispered Kathleen, eagerly. "Yes; it is that of a young girl whom I fancy he loves. If it were only _her_ now," she said, musingly. "The name?" questioned Helen Fox, with eager impatience. "Kathleen!" replied Mrs. Chainey. Oh, what a cry came from Kathleen's lips! "Oh, my love, my love, you have not forgotten me! I am Kathleen! Oh, madame, let me go to him!" "Come!" was the thrilling answer, and as she led the girl away, Kathleen's heart throbbed wildly with the thought that she should hear his lips pronounce her forgiveness. "And he shall not die! My love shall call him back from the grave!" she sobbed. CHAPTER LXI. SHE LOVED MUCH. I would have rather been a slave In tears, in bondage, by his side, Than shared in all, if wanting him, This world had power to give beside. L. E. LANDON. She was kneeling by his couch--she was gazing through her blinding tears upon that pallid, emotionless face, as still now as though it already bore the stamp of death; her hand touched his, but it did not respond to her passionate pressure, and when she called his name, there was no answer--not even a quiver of the dark, curling lashes lying so heavily against the marble-white cheek. Mrs. Chainey and the two physicians looked on in the tenderest compassion. The story of the young girl's love was written on her anguished face, and they knew, alas! that Ralph Chainey lay close to the borders of spirit-land. The dark eyes would never open on that most beautiful face bending over him, the pale lips would never unclose to speak her name. Breathlessly she called upon his name, beseeching him to look at her, to speak to her; but the spell that wrapped him was too deep. Those strong men listening to her wept in sympathy. They had no hope. It had been so difficult to stanch the flow of blood from the terrible wound so close to his heart, that he was sinking from inanition--he could not survive the weakness. Suddenly the girl turned and looked at them. They were whispering together. She caught some disjointed words: