But over both their minds flashed at the same moment a memory of the words she had said to him when she believed him dying: “If you had lived I would have loved you!” How he had treasured those words, hugged them to his heart in rapture, found in them a palliation for his deceit. “If you had lived I would have loved you!” She would have loved him, knowing he was a Ludington, a son of the man her grandfather despised. She would have loved him despite that barrier, her sweet, girlish lips had frankly told him so as she gazed with pity and sorrow into his dying eyes. Her words had come true. He had wooed and won sweet Eva, believing that his deception was no great harm at all, since she had in a manner consented to it in the impulsive words with which she bade him, as she believed, an eternal adieu. But with her last words, uttered under the stress of terrible shock, she was gainsaying her former declaration, cutting the ground from beneath his feet. There was a breathless moment in which they gazed silently into each other’s anguished eyes, searching each the other’s heart, while every one wondered what would be the outcome. The young doctor’s dark-blue eyes, beautiful, tender, troubled, like some hunted creature’s at bay, mutely implored her pardon and her love. Hers, wild, incredulous, agonized, were seeking and finding the startling truth. Yes, she recognized him now, understood her subtle, half recognition of him all along. Oh, why had she been so blind that a little alteration in his personal appearance had misled her so fatally that she had been tricked into a misplaced love, had found heaven in his presence, bliss in his voice, and touch, and glance, happiness with him and no one else. A sense of ingratitude, of remorse, of falsehood to gran’ther’s revered memory pierced her tender heart like a thorn. Oh, he was looking down on her from heaven; could he know that she had been about to wed his enemy, at whose door, whether willfully or in self-defense, lay her cousin’s blood? The tortured lover searched her face with eager, haggard eyes for some sign of relenting. “Eva, Eva!” he murmured imploringly, but he would never forget the reproach, the despair, the anger of the beautiful upturned face, or the bitterness of the voice in which she answered: “Oh, I know you now, Doctor Ludington, and I will never forgive you!” Then her senses reeled with agony, her white hands slipped from his arm, and she sank like one dead at his feet. No one who saw the piteous sight ever forgot how like a dead girl she looked, the beautiful little bride, lying prone on the floor in her filmy white robes, and the fragrant garlands crushed in her golden locks even as her heart was crushed with the weight of despair.