Miss Nellie Seton came early next morning to see her friend, Mr. Charley Stuart, off. He is looking rather pale as he bids them good-by—the vision of Edith's eyes upturned to his, full of mute, impassionate appeal, have haunted him all night long. They haunt him now, long after the last good-by had been said, and the train is sweeping away Westward. Edith loves him at last. At last? there has never been a time when he doubted it, but now he knows he has but to say the word, and she will lay her hand in his, and toil, and parting, and separation will end between them forever. But he will never, say that word—what Edith Darrell in her ambition once refused, all Lady Catheron's wealth and beauty cannot win. He feels he could as easily leap from the car window and end it all, as ask Sir Victor Catheron's richly dowered widow to be his wife. She made her choice three years ago—she must abide by that choice her life long.

"And then," he thinks rather doggedly, "this fancy of mine may be only fancy. The leopard cannot change his spots, and an ambitious, mercenary woman cannot change her nature. And, as a rule, ladies of wealth and title don't throw themselves away on impecunious dry goods clerks. No! I made an egregious ass of myself once, and once is quite enough. We have turned over a new leaf, and are not going back at this late day to the old ones. With her youth, her fortune, and her beauty, Edith can return to England and make a brilliant second marriage."

And then Mr. Stuart sets his lips behind his brown mustache, and unfolds the morning paper, smelling damp and nasty of printer's ink, and immerses himself, fathoms deep, in mercantile news and the doings of the Stock Exchange.

He reaches St Louis in safety, and resumes the labor of his life. He has no time to think—no time to be sentimental, if he wished to be, which he doesn't.

"Love is of man's life a thing apart," sings a poet, who knew what he was talking about. His heart is not in the least broken, nor likely to be; there is no time in his busy, mercantile life, for that sort of thing, I repeat. He goes to work with a will, and astonishes even himself by his energy and brisk business capacity. If he thinks of Edith at all, amid his dry-as-dust ledgers and blotters, his buying and selling, it is that she is probably on the ocean by this time—having bidden her native land, like Childe Harold, "One long, one last, good-night." And then, in the midst of it all, Trixy's first letter arrives.

It is all Edith, from beginning to end. Edith has not gone, she is still in New York, but her passage is taken, and she will leave next week. "And Charley," says Trix, "don't be angry now, but do you know, though Edith Darrell always liked you, I fancy Lady Catheron likes you even better. Not that she ever says anything; bless you! she is as proud as ever; but we women can tell. And last night she told ma and me the story of her past, of her married life—or rather her un-married life—of her separation from Sir Victor on their wedding-day—think of it, Charley! on their wedding-day. If ever anyone in this world was to be pitied, it was he—poor fellow! And she was not to blame—neither could have acted other than they did, that I can see. Poor Edith! poor Sir Victor! I will tell you all when we meet. She leaves next Tuesday, and it half breaks my heart to see her go. Oh, Charley! Charley! why need she go at all?"

He reads this letter as he smokes his cigar—very gravely, very thoughtfully, wondering a great deal, but not in the least moved from his steadfast purpose. Parted on their wedding-day! he has heard that before, but hardly credited it. It is true then—odd that; and neither to be blamed—odder still. She has only been Sir Victor's wife in name, then, after all. But it makes no difference to him—nothing does—all that is past and done—she flung him off once—he will never go back now. Their paths lie apart—hers over the hills of life, his in the dingy valleys—they have said good-by, and it means forever.

He goes back to his ledgers and his counting-room, and four more days pass. On the evening of the fourth day, as he leaves the store for the night, a small boy from the telegraph office waylays him, and hands him one of the well-known buff envelopes. He breaks it open where he stands, and read this:

"NEW YORK, Oct. 28, '70.
"Charley: Edith is lying dangerously ill—dying. Come
back at once. BEATRIX."

He reads, and the truth does not come to him—he reads it again. Edith is dying. And then a grayish pallor comes over his face, from brow to chin, and he stands for a moment, staring vacantly at the paper he holds, seeing nothing—hearing nothing but these words: "Edith is dying." In that moment he knows that all his imaginary hardness and indifference have been hollow and false—a wall of pride that crumbles at a touch, and the old love, stronger than life, stronger than death, fills his heart still. He has left her, and—Edith is dying! He looks at his watch. There is an Eastward-bound train in half an hour—there will be barely time to catch it. He does not return to his boarding house—he calls a passing Mack, and is driven to the depot just in time. He makes no pause from that hour—he travels night and day. What is business; what the prospects of all his future life; what is the whole world now? Edith is dying.

He reaches New York at last. It seems like a century since that telegram came, and haggard and worn, in the twilight of the autumn day, he stands at last in his mother's home.

Trix is there—they expect him to-night, and she has waited to receive him. She looks in his face once, then turns away and covers her own, and bursts into a woman's tempest of tears.

"I—I am too late," he says in a hoarse sort of whisper.

"No," Trix answers, looking up; "not too late. She is alive still—I can say no more."

"What is it?" he asks.

"It is almost impossible to say. Typhoid fever, one doctor says, and cerebro spinal meningitis says the other. It doesn't much matter what it is, since both agree in this—that she is dying."

Her sobs breaks forth again. He sits and gazes at her like a stone.

"There is no hope?"

"While there is life there is hope." But it is in a very dreary voice that Trix repeats this aphorism: "and—the worst of it is, she doesn't seem to care. Charley, I believe she wants to die, is glad to die. She seems to have nothing to care for—nothing to live for. 'My life has been all a mistake,' she said to me the other day. 'I have gone wrong from first to last, led astray by my vanity, and selfishness, and ambition. It is much better that I should die, and make an end of it all.' She has made her will, Charley—she made it in the first days of her illness, and—she has left almost everything to you."

He makes no reply. He sits motionless in the twilit window, looking down at the noisy, bustling street.

"She has remembered me most generously," Trix goes softly on; "poor, darling Edith! but she has left almost all to you. 'It would have been an insult to offer anything in my lifetime,' she said to me; 'but the wishes of the dead are sacred,—he will not be able to refuse it then. And tell him not to grieve for me, Trixy—I never made him anything but trouble, and disappointment, and wretchedness. I am sorry—sorry now, and my last wish and prayer will be for the happiness of his life.' When she is delirious, and she mostly is as night draws on, she calls for you incessantly—asking you to come back—begging, you to forgive her. That is why I sent."

"Does she know you sent?" he asks.

"No—it was her desire you should not be told until—until all was over," Trix answered with another burst of tears; "but I couldn't do that. She says we are to bury her at Sandypoint, beside her mother—not send her body to England. She told me, when she was dead, to tell you the story of her separation from Sir Victor. Shall I tell it to you now, Charley?"

He makes a motion of assent; and Trix begins, in a broken voice, and tells him the sad, strange story of the two Sir Victors, father and son, and of Edith's life from her wedding-day. The twilight deepens into darkness, the room is wrapped in shadow long before she has finished. He never stirs, he never speaks, he sits and listens to the end. Then there is a pause, and out of the gloom he speaks at last:

"May I see her, and when?"

"As soon as you come, the doctors say; they refuse her nothing now, and they think your presence may do her good,—if anything can do it. Mother is with her and Nellie; Nellie has been her best friend and nurse; Nellie has never left her, and Charley," hesitatingly, for something in his manner awes Trix, "I believe she thinks you and Nellie are engaged."

"Stop!" he says imperiously, and Trixy rises with a sigh and puts on her hat and shawl. Five minutes later they are in the street, on their way to Lady Catheron's hotel.

One of the medical men is in the sick-room when Miss Stuart enters it, and she tells him in a whisper that her brother has come, and is waiting without.

His patient lies very low to-night—delirious at times, and sinking, it seems to him, fast. She is in a restless, fevered sleep at present, and he stands looking at her with a very sombre look on his professional face. In spite of his skill, and he is very skilful, this case baffles him. The patient's own utter indifference, as to whether she lives or dies, being one of the hardest things he has to combat. If she only longed for life, and strove to recruit—if, like Mrs. Dombey, she would, "only make an effort." But she will not, and the flame flickers, and flickers, and very soon will go out altogether.

"Let him come in," the doctor says. "He can do no harm—he may possibly do some good."

"Will she know him when she awakes?" Trix whispers.

He nods and turns away to where Miss Seton stands in the distance, and Trix goes and fetches her brother in. He advances slowly, almost reluctantly it would seem, and looks down at the wan, drawn, thin face that rests there, whiter than the pillows. Great Heaven! and this—this is Edith! He sinks into a chair by the bedside, and takes her wan, transparent hand in both his own, with a sort of groan. The light touch awakes her, the faint eyelids quiver, the large, dark eyes open and fix on his face. The lips flutter breathlessly apart. "Charley!" they whisper in glad surprise; and over the death-like face there flashes for a second an electric light of great amaze and joy.

"Humph!" says the doctor, with a surprised grunt; "I thought it would do her no harm. If we leave them alone for a few minutes, my dear young ladies, it will do us no harm either. Mind, my young gentleman," he taps Charley on the shoulder, "my patient is not to excite herself talking."

They softly go out. It would appear the doctor need not have warned him; they don't seem inclined to talk. She lies and looks at him, delight in her eyes, and draws a long, long breath of great content. For him, he holds her wasted hand a little tighter, and lays his face down on the pillow, and does not speak a word.

So the minutes pass.

"Charley," she says at last, in a faint, little whisper, "what a surprise this is. They did not tell me you were coming. Who sent for you? When did you come?"

"You're not to talk, Edith," he answers, lifting his haggard face for a moment—poor Charley! "Trix sent for me." Then he lays it down again.

"Foolish boy!" Edith says with shining eyes; "I do believe you are crying. You don't hate me, then, after all, Charley?"

"Hate you!" he can but just repeat.

"You once said you did, you know; and I deserved it. But I have not been happy, Charley—I have been punished as I merited. Now it is all over, and it is better so—I never was of any use in the world, and never would be. You will let me atone a little for the past in the only way I can. Trix will tell you. And, by and by, when you are quite happy, and she is your wife—"

The faint voice breaks, and she turns her face away. Even in death it is bitterer than death to give him up.

He lifts his head, and looks at her.

"When she is my wife? when who is my wife?" he asks.

"Nellie—you know," she whispers; "she is worthy of you, Charley—indeed she is, and I never was. And she loves you, and will make you hap—"

"Stop!" he says suddenly; "you are making some strange mistake, Edith. Nellie cares for me, as Trix does, and Trix is not more a sister to me than Nellie. For the rest—do you remember what I said to you that night at Killarney?"

Her lips tremble—her eyes watch him, her weak fingers close tightly over his. Remember! does she not?

"I said—'I will love you all my life!' I have kept my word, and mean to keep it. If I may not call you wife, I will never call, by that name, any other woman. No one in this world can ever be to me again, what you were and are."

There is another pause, but the dark, uplifted eyes are radiant now.

"At last! at last!" she breathes; "when it is too late. Oh, Charley! If the past might only come over again, how different it all would be. I think"—she says this with a weak little laugh, that reminds him of the Edith of old—"I think I could sleep more happily even in my grave—if 'Edith Stuart' were carved on my tombstone!"

His eyes never leave her face—they light up in their dreary sadness now at these words.

"Do you mean that, Edith?" he says bending over her; "living or dying, would it make you any happier to be my wife?"

Her eyes, her face, answer him. "But it is too late," the pale lips sigh.

"It is never too late," he says quietly; "we will be married to-night."

"Charley?"

"You are not to talk," he tells her, kissing her softly and for the first time; "I will arrange it all. I will go for a clergyman I know, and explain everything. Oh, darling! you should have been my wife long ago—you shall be my wife at last, in spite of death itself."

Then he leaves her, and goes out. And Edith closes her eyes, and lies still, and knows that never in all the years that are gone has such perfect bliss been hers before. In death, at least, if not life, she will be Charley's wife.

He tells them very quietly, very resolutely—her father who is there from Sandypoint, his mother, sister, Nellie, the doctor.

They listen in wordless wonder; but what can they say?

"The excitement will finish her—mark my words," is the doctor's verdict; "I will never countenance any such melodramatic proceeding."

But his countenance does not matter it seems. The laws of the Medes were not more fixed than this marriage. The clergyman comes, a very old friend of the family, and Charley explains all to him. He listens with quiet gravity—in his experience a death-bed marriage is not at all an unprecedented occurrence. The hour fixed is ten, and Trixy and Nellie go in to make the few possible preparations.

The sick girl lifts two wistful eyes to the gentle face of Nellie Seton. It is very pale, but she stoops and kisses her with her own sweet smile.

"You will live now for his sake," she whispers in that kiss.

They decorate the room and the bed with flowers, they brush away the dark soft hair, they array her in a dainty embroidered night-robe, and prop her up with pillows. There is the fever fire on her wan cheeks, the fever fire in her shining eyes. But she is unutterably happy—you have but to look into her face to see that. Death is forgotten in her new bliss.

The bridegroom comes in, pale and unsmiling—worn and haggard beyond the power of words to tell. Trix, weeping incessantly, stands near, her mother and Mr. Darrell are at one side of the bed. Nellie is bridesmaid. What a strange, sad, solemn wedding it is! The clergyman takes out his book and begins—bride and bridegroom clasp hands, her radiant eyes never leave his face. Her faint replies flutter on her lips—there is an indescribable sadness in his. The ring is on her finger—at last she is what she should have been from the first—Charley's wife.

He bends forward and takes her in his arms. With all her dying strength she lifts herself to his embrace. It is a last expiring effort—her weak clasp relaxes, there is one faint gasp. Her head falls heavily upon his breast—there is a despairing cry from the women, cold and lifeless, Charley Stuart lays his bride of a moment back among the pillows—whether dead or in a dead swoon no one there can tell.