but doomed, dying,--with a dark, hopeless eternity stretching out
before his shuddering gaze. And when he turned to me in those last
awful moments for solace and affection, I was to tell him that the girl
he loved, the woman he adored, had since that one night kept the
purpose of vengeance hot in her heart,--that for years her sole study
had been to baffle and to wound him,--and that now, through all those
months that she had been beside him, that he had looked to her as
friend, helper, comforter, she had kept her deadly aim in view. _She_
had deceived him with false hopes of recovery; _she_ had turned again
to the world the thoughts which he would fain have fixed on heaven;
while he was loving her, she had hated him. She had darkened his life;
she had ruined his soul.

Oh, was not this a revenge worthy of the name?

I went to him. He was sitting in the great easy-chair, propped with
pillows; John had left the room, overcome by his feelings. Never shall
I forget that face,--the despair of those eyes.

I sat down by him and took his hand.

"The Doctor has told you?" I murmured.

"Yes,--and what is this world which I so soon must enter? I believe too
much to have one moment's peace in view of what is coming. Oh, why did
I not believe more before it was too late?"

I kept silence a few minutes; then I said,--

"Listen, William,--I have something to tell you."