That morning, at eight o’clock, Wentworth took Roux and Antony, with the elfin Tugmutton, to Worcester, and delivered them, with a note from Muriel, to the care of a friend. A week later, and Roux’s family followed him. Safe in the uncorrupted heart of the Commonwealth, where, even in that dark period, the old New England honor fortressed the rights of the lowly—happy, because they knew not what had befallen their strong friend—thenceforth their humble fortunes flowed in peace.

Wentworth returned in the afternoon of that day, but even before his return, the news of Harrington’s death had spread abroad among all who knew the family, and already a number of friends had called. Mrs. Eastman and Muriel, however, unwilling to be questioned, had decided to excuse themselves to every one, and nobody was admitted. Harrington had lived rather a reclusive life—at least, he went but little into what is called society, and except to a number of poor and humble people, he was little known. To most of the friends and acquaintance of Muriel, he was a stranger, and to the neighborhood only a stately figure, sometimes seen alone from the windows, sometimes walking with her. Hence the interest the neighborhood felt in his death was, as far as he personally was concerned, vague, and keen only on account of Muriel, whose loss, so soon after her marriage, excited a great deal of sympathy and comment.

The funeral was to be strictly private, and Wentworth returned to find the beauteous body already prepared for the grave. It lay in its casket in the library, garbed in the clothes it had worn in life. The young man gazed upon it a little while, then turned to Muriel.

“Of course,” he said, “the burial permit has been attended to.”

“Yes,” she answered. “Dr. Winslow gave the certificate.”

“What cause could he have assigned for the death?” he asked, with a startled air.

Muriel looked at him for a moment with a strange, faint smile.

“Enlargement of the heart,” she answered.

Wentworth’s pale face became convulsed, and his eyes filled with tears.

“Yes,” he murmured, clasping his hands, “that was the cause indeed!”

It was a day of grief to all but Muriel. The servants moved about the house with eyes red with weeping. Patrick seemed ten years older with his forlorn sorrow. Hannah and the children came to the house, and remained for a couple of hours, crying bitterly. Gracious and calm and sweet amidst the mortal anguish, Muriel soothed and strengthened and consoled them all.

The next day was the day of the funeral. The library where the body lay was decked as on the day of the wedding, with a profusion of roses. All the windows were open, and the rich, dark room swam in clear radiance.

In the morning, Mrs. Eastman, Emily, Wentworth, and Captain Fisher, being present, Muriel produced a brief will which Harrington had made the day after his marriage. The few engravings which decorated his room, and a portion of his books, he had bequeathed to Emily and Wentworth. The bulk of his library was given to Muriel. His house to Captain Fisher, with the provision that the two rooms in which he had lived should be kept for the refuge of any fugitive, exile, houseless or outcast person of any description who might stand in need of succor. His little income he had also given in charge to the Captain to be expended for the relief of any human distresses that might fall within his knowledge, or to be used at his discretion for any charitable end.

The old man bent his head, silently weeping, and the rest sat mute and still, thinking with swelling hearts of the kind spirit that had left earth forever.

A little while, and they were gone from the room—all save Muriel and Wentworth. The latter stood bending over the coffin and looking mournfully on the beautiful dead face of his friend, and Muriel sat at the organ dreaming in music, which brooded in sweet and glorious surges on the sunlit air.

As the melody died away, Wentworth stole slowly to her side.

“I forgot to ask you,” he murmured, “about the burial service. Have you sent for a clergyman?”

“No, Richard,” she replied. “He needs none. Our thoughts and memories are the fittest burial rites for him. He was a type and harbinger of the day when religion shall be the tender love and reverence of every soul for all. In the vision of that day let us lay his dead form in the grave, hallowed by our remembrance.”

He bent his head in silence and moved away.

An hour passed by, and a low tap came to the door. It was Patrick come up to say that Mr. Witherlee was below, and begged to see her. Muriel paused a moment, with a strange feeling of surprise at this unexpected visit, and then went down into the parlor.

Witherlee was there, standing hat in hand, in the middle of the floor. He did not bow as she came in, but looked at her with a rigid and wan face, and sad opaque eyes. For a moment, Muriel, usually so collected and calm, lost herself in wonder at his aspect, and blankly gazed at him. He was singularly changed. All the affected elegance of manner was gone; the contumeliousness, the superciliousness, the morbidity of the face were gone too; the handsome brown hair was brushed flat; the handsome eyebrows seemed as if their expressive lift was lost forever. He was attired in deep black, with not a line of white visible, and his colorless and rigid countenance wore a strange expression of wan, ascetic abstraction.

“Why, Fernando,” said Muriel, in a slow, wondering voice, recovering from her momentary pause, and approaching him with an outstretched hand, “I am surprised to see you.”

He took her hand and bowed slightly, with an abstracted air.

“I ask your pardon for calling,” he replied, looking vacantly at her, and speaking as if in dreaming soliloquy. “I heard of his death.”

He paused, looking at her with his rigid lips slightly parted, and his eyes like sad stone.

“Yes,” said she, slowly, wondering more and more at his strange manner. “It is true. He died yesterday morning at sunrise.”

There was another long pause, in which she looked blankly at his abstracted gazing face.

“I am going to join the Catholic church,” he said presently, looking vacantly at the wall, though his eyes had not seemed to turn from her countenance.

“Indeed!” she replied.

“Yes,” said he, “in two or three days I am going to Baltimore. I intend to prepare myself for holy orders.”

“Do you mean that you are going to become a priest?” she wonderingly asked.

“Yes,” he replied, “in the Catholic church.”

She blankly looked at him, marvelling at what he had told her.

“Would you be kind enough to let me see him?” said he, vacantly. “Only for a moment. I would be very grateful.”

So great was her wonderment at the strange alteration in him, and so potent the deadening influence that radiated from him, that for a few moments she remained still and silent, fixedly looking at his face.

“Certainly, Fernando,” she suddenly replied, starting from her amazement. “Certainly, you shall see him. Come with me.”

She went quickly from the room and upstairs, almost doubting that he was following her, so noiseless was his movement. But as she entered the library and turned, he was there, and moving slowly to the casket on the table, with his lips parted, and his eyes fixed upon it. He laid his hat down as he reached it, and gazed intently on the face of the dead. For a moment, Muriel’s eyes sank from him to the floor, and when she looked up again, she saw that his hands were folded, his eyes closed, and his lips moving in prayer. She turned away, with a touched heart.

A few minutes went slowly by, and a dim sense of motion, as if the air stirred, came to her. He was standing near her, hat in hand. His face was mute, and sad, and very pale.

“Thank you,” said he, in a low voice. “I am very grateful. It has done me great good to see him once more. I feel better for it.”

Her heart rose to him, and with a sudden movement she reached out her hand. He took it instantly, and his lip trembled.

“You were very good to me,” he faltered—“you and Richard and Emily. I do not feel fit to come here, and I would not have come again if I had not heard he was dead. I did not feel fit to see him while he lived, but I wanted to see him when I heard he was no more. He was the best friend I had in the world. He did me good. I think I really never loved any one but him.”

“Fernando,” said Muriel, tenderly, “can you not let the past be forgotten? Do not go away from us. Stay here, for we are your friends, and you need to be sustained and comforted. Let us forget all that has happened, and meet happily together now.”

“Thank you,” he replied, sadly. “You are very kind, and I am grateful to you. But I do not feel fit to live near you. I do not deserve your friendship.”

Her lips parted to answer him, but he retreated shaking his head mournfully, and stepping noiselessly from the room, went down-stairs like a phantom, and was gone. Muriel’s head drooped, and with her hands clasped together, she stood musing for a long time.

The hours wore on, and as the time drew near to three o’clock, which was the hour at which they were to bear the dead to Mount Auburn, Muriel went to her chamber to attire herself for the sacred journey. When she came down into the library, all who were to go were there. Her mother, Captain Fisher and his family, Emily and Wentworth, Bagasse, and with him a new comer—his wife, a little middle-aged, brown Frenchwoman, whose eyes were swollen and red with hours of weeping for the dead gentleman who had nursed her husband in his sickness, and helped him and her to meet life as they had never been helped before. Muriel paused a few moments to greet her kindly in her own language, and then went to the body of Harrington.

As she reached the coffined form, illumined by the bright light which filled the room, she saw something on the dark-garbed breast, which brought to her golden eyes the first tears they had known since her hero died. It was the Cross of the Legion of Honor! She knew at once who had placed it there, and a mighty wave of emotion swept through her as she gazed on the old soldier’s great-hearted tribute to the valor of her dead.

For a few moments she stood still, then turning with a sun-flash in her dewy eyes, and her features flushed with generous color, she saw the old Frenchman standing near her, looking with a reverent and sombre visage, and an eye of dark brilliance, on the cross of the Legion.

“It is mush bettair zere zan here,” he said, laying his hand upon his heart, as his eye met hers. “Mon Empereur, he gif me zat wis his own hand, madame. I was young conscrip’ at Ligny, and I take ze standard from ze Prussian. Zen he put on my breast zat cross. I lof it wis vair mush lof, and I will keep it for vair many year till I die. Zen he die—zat is my ozzer self, and I put it on him. It is his right. Ze brave zhentilman, wis his gallantree, his goodness, his mush lof, he lie in ze grave wis ze cross of ze Legion on his breast. Zat is well. It is his right, madame.”

She pressed his hand in both of hers, looking fervently into his uncouth and martial visage.

“Thanks,” she replied, speaking in French. “You fill me with gratitude. I accept for him the great and noble tribute of your love. It is, as you say, his right, for he belonged to the Legion of Honor. He was a soldier of the Guard—the old Guard which dies; but never surrenders!”

The dark eye blazed as he took in the proud significance of her words, and silent with emotion, he bowed, and retired.

Two hours later, and, the burial over, they stood in the green and tender sunlit shadows of Mount Auburn. A still peace filled the sweet sequestered shades. The birds sang in the murmuring leaves; the soft warm odors of the flowers and greenery breathed around them; the blue June sky was cloudless and calm; and the descending sunlight shone sweetly on the quiet graves.

For a little while after the others were gone, Muriel and Wentworth lingered looking at the gentle light which floated with the shadows of the oak-leaves overhead, on the new-made mound.

“It is all over,” said Wentworth mournfully. “Alas! I never thought I would stand by his grave! He realized the noblest dreams of chivalry—he was the last grand chevalier—and he is gone. What is left us now!”

“Memories,” she calmly answered, “memories of a life of love. Love beat through all his life, love nerved him in the strife in which he fell. He smote like Socrates at Delium—like the divine old Greek who clove his country’s foe, and blessed him as he died. So smote he with stern love, and in all the wealth of memories he leaves me, that memory too, is mine. Sweet memories, I treasure you in my heart of hearts! Sweet blossoms of True Love, I fold you all. Stern blossom of True Love, I fold you too.”

He gazed with mournful tenderness at her noble features, which were lit with a brilliant and fervent smile.

“True Love, indeed!” he answered. “Who but he could leave his beautiful Muriel, his adored wife, and go away to die for one of the lowliest of God’s creatures! Ah, were there a thousand such as he, this land would be purged of every wrong! But he was alone in nobleness.”

“No, not alone,” she said with sudden spirit. “Not alone. This is America—America, forming and emerging, with martyrs and heroes such as no land has seen. The Greek could die for freemen; but when died he for the helot? Oh, I see the heroes of all lands and times! They live and die for country, for ideas, for religions, but in America they live and die for man. Land of Lovejoy’s grave, land of Torrey’s grave, land of the graves obscure and countless, graves of the lovers for whose love the lowest was not too low, I read your golden augury! You prophecy the future; you herald the America uprising—the beautiful divine land of lovers and of friends! Shall it not come? Oh, graves of all who die that it may be, answer, answer, answer!”

Her thrilling voice ceased, and as they silently moved away, a long and sea-like swell of wind arose, and all the leaves tossed and swept in an aspiration of innumerable rushing voices, holier than ever murmured in the dim groves of Dodona.

Answer, answer, answer! Oh, grave at Auburn, green with summer beauty, folding beneath the oak-tree shadows the ashes of the dead chevalier, answer, answer, fading as I gaze! Answer, lone grave in the Adirondacks, fadeless and immortal above the dust of the True Lover who tried to save his country from her slaves, and died that the land of lovers and of friends might be! Answer, graves of the strong score of heroes who flung themselves with the true-loving sword upon the Jacquerie of slavery, and perished for the hope that makes America divine! Answer, graves of all that made the country holy with the passion of their living and their dying for mankind—answer, and tell us that America emerges, the land of lovers and of friends!

It comes! It comes! Clear and sweet are your voices, oh, graves! Raging clamors drown the voices of the living, but clear and sweet are the voices of the dead, and it comes—the bright land comes—the land of lovers and of friends, it comes!

THE END.