 and tranquil rapture. Filled with celestial
bliss, he wandered on through the purpureal glory of the garden, under
the holy shadow of strange trees, and amidst the myriad blowing clusters
of the flowers, while the songs of birds sounded in liquid melody around
him, and yet did not break the divine silence of the solemn Paradise.
And wandering on, he turned a curve of the path, and came upon the
gracious presence of the man he loved. He knew the majestic front, the
vast brow, the sweet and piercing eye of Verulam, and like a younger
brother yearning with affection, he drew nigh and laid his head upon his
breast. The arms gently enfolded him; the regal face bent over his with a
tender and benignant smile; and thrilling with the slow sweetness of an
unutterable ecstasy, he seemed to sink into the swoon of the soul, and
the vision was gone.

Her arms had fallen away from him in her slumber, and noiselessly rising
as he awoke, he sat on the edge of the couch, and leaned his damp brow on
his hand, his brain light and clear, his frame drenched in the renewing
dew of sleep, and throbbing with the remembered bliss of his dream, and
one still solemn thought distinct in his mind. He was to die! The meaning
of that dream was death! A slow thrill ran through his veins as he
thought of it. Yes, that was its meaning. He was to die!

He sat still for some minutes, with that thought in his mind. Gradually
the sweetness of the dream failed from him, merged in a ghostly sense
of the quietude around him. He looked up with a feeling of awe. The
dim lamplight faintly lit the pure and shadowy chamber. All was vague,
motionless, indefinite. Nothing seemed distinct or living, but that
strange and awful conviction, too strong for any doubt, that he was to
die.

Turning slowly, he gazed upon the face of Muriel. The last lingering
relic of the sweetness of his dream failed from him as he looked upon
her. His young wife. How could he bear to leave her! Four days of
heavenly joy with her—heavenly even in the sorrow that had lain upon the
last; four little days—the divine dawn of a long life of happiness—only
four, and this was to be the end! The golden gates of a beautiful
existence, affluent of use and influence and fame, just opened to him
with her, and now to close forever. To lay down all the deliciousness,
the joys, the hopes, the ambitions of life, for the happiness of two poor
negro brothers. For their poor trampled rights to abandon life—oh, above
all, to resign her! To die, and leave her on earth alone, her bursting
day-spring of happy and noble love quenched in the black and blotting
cloud of death. To die—to die and leave her.

Icy cold, yet with a burning brain, and slow thrills creeping through the
horror of his veins, he turned away, and sat still. Hark! In the silence
came the distant sound from a steeple striking the hour. He counted the
slow strokes. Eleven. He looked at his watch. It was eleven o’clock. In
one hour more he was to go.

He looked around the quiet room. Life never seemed to him so sweet as
then. In contrast to the stillness and seclusion, the peaceful comfort
and warm luxury of the restful chamber, came the vision of the bare and
open night upon the bleak waste of waters, and he in the lonely boat with
those rude men, thinking of the gentle being he had left behind him. A
sense as of one who shivers out under the winter stars, and turns to
the warm firelight and the cheerful faces of friends in the cosy glow
of home, came to him, and with it came temptation like a voice. Turn
from this purpose—turn to love and life! You have been staunch and true
in human kindness to its uttermost demand, but your life belongs to
her, and not to another. Well to save this man from his doom, but not
to fling away your life for a single service, when ampler service needs
you. Think of her suffering, think of her mother’s grief for your loss,
think, too, of the friends you are leading into peril. Perhaps your
warning includes them—think of those who will mourn them, and for their
sakes turn from this hopeless purpose. Turn, for this is warning and not
fate—or go, still in safety, and plead with those men for the fugitive’s
release—threaten them, menace them with civil penalties, and perchance
they will yield him. But if they do not, all is done that you are called
to do, and life is more than you are called to give; so turn away from
them, and tell your friends you cannot risk their safety, and come back
here to long years of happiness with her.

Sitting in icy silence, the temptings rose within his brain, clear as
if a still and gentle voice had breathed them, and mingled with a siren
sense of honeyed music that seemed to circle round and round him like an
airy coil. Suddenly he sprang up with a spasm of heroic grief and agony,
and stood quivering with his eyes covered by his hands. Her eyelids
unclosed, and lying still, she looked at him. The next instant, she
leaped from the couch and clasped him in her arms.

There was a long pause of awful silence, in which he stood with head
uplifted and his eyes covered with his hands, while she clung to him,
her face still between its thick length of waven tresses, and gazed with
dilated eyes into his half-hid features.

“My beloved! My own beloved, what is this? Was it a dream? Be calm—be
strong. I am with you. I hold you in my arms. No evil thing can come
to you when I am near. Love clasps you, my dear and gentle lover, and
nothing can harm you.”

At the full, tender silver of her voice, the shadows and the terrors
rushed from his soul. His hands fell from his still and pallid features,
and putting his arms around her, he gazed into her face.

“Hush!” he murmured. “A moment! I will tell you in a moment.”

They stood in silence gazing at each other.

Presently his arms fell from her, and swiftly gliding away she turned up
the light, which at once filled the room with mellow radiance. Hurriedly,
he bound on his shoes, put his pistol in his breast, and sat on the couch
beside her.

“Muriel,” said he, “you were right; I have had dreams. Listen.”

In a low, clear voice, he told her all. The narration occupied several
minutes, and during that time she listened with a still face and lips
parted. He ceased at length, and there was a long pause.

“What does this mean?” she murmured. “Do you take these dreams as augury?”

“Muriel,” said he with solemn and passionate tenderness, “do you remember
what you said when we lay down to slumber? It comes again to me now.
You said: ‘It is the fourth night; a very little night; but the fifth
night will be sweet and long, and full of rest.’ Oh, my beloved, sweet
and long, and full of rest may it be to you! Sweet and long, and full
of rest, it will be to me. To-night I go from you. Can you bear that I
should go when I am not to return? For the dream meant death, and I am
going away to die.”

One spasm of overmastering pain convulsed her features, and vanished.
The next instant her face was calm, between its fall of shadowy tresses;
her lips were lightly closed; her eyes were fixed on his. But a torrent
rush of memories overswept her—memories of omens and presentiments that
had mysteriously foreshadowed this; and a mighty feeling rose within her,
and told her that this was the voice of the prescient soul. Not for an
instant did she think he was deceived, and the calmness that sank upon
her spirit was the shadow of eternity.

“To die!” she answered, in a slow, rapt voice. “Going away from me to
die.”

Her lips closed, and pressing one hand to her bosom, she lifted her
clear, still eyes to heaven, and her countenance became pale and radiant
as though it gazed upon the face of God.

There was a long interval of terrible silence.

“It is true,” she said at length, in low, abstracted tones, “he is to
leave me. Our happiness foreran the ages. The world could not sustain it.
The music was too divinely sweet to last, and it melts back from earth!
Well, well, I know it now. The