She gazed at him with pity.

“I am sorry,” she said; “I did not wish to humble you.  I have one word more to say, and then I must go.  I have just bid my last earthly farewell to—­your wife.  My farewell to you must be as complete as that, as complete as though the grave had already swallowed one of us.  We have done with each other for ever.  I do not think that I shall come back here.  In my waking moments your name shall never willingly pass my lips again.  I will say it for the last time now. Philip, Philip, Philip, whom I chose to love out of all the world, I pray God that He will take me, or deaden the edge of what I suffer, and that He may never let my feet cross your path or my eyes fall upon your face again.”

In another second she had passed out of the room and out of his life.

That night, or rather just before dawn on the following morning, Hilda, knowing that her end was very near, sent for her husband.

“Go quickly, doctor,” she said.  “I shall die at dawn.”

The doctor found him seated in the same spot where Maria Lee had left him.

“What, more misery!” he said, when he had told his errand.  “I cannot bear it.  There is a curse upon me—­death and wickedness, misery and death!”

“You must come if you wish to see your wife alive.”

“I will come;” and he rose and followed him.

A sad sight awaited him.  The moment of the grey dawn was drawing near, and, by his wife’s request, a window had been unshuttered, that her dimmed eyes might once more look upon the light.  On the great bed in the centre of the room lay Hilda, whose life was now quickly draining from her, and by her side was placed the sleeping infant.  She was raised and supported on either side by pillows, and her unbound golden hair fell around her shoulders, enclosing her face as in a frame.  Her pallid countenance seemed touched with an awful beauty that had not belonged to it in life, whilst in her eyes was that dread and prescient gaze which sometimes come to those who are about to solve death’s mystery.

By the side of the bed knelt Mr. Fraser, the clergyman of the parish, repeating in an earnest tone the prayers for the dying, whilst the sad-faced attendants moved with muffled tread backwards and forwards from the ring of light around the bed into the dark shadows that lay beyond.

When Philip came, the clergyman ceased praying, and drew back into the further part of the room, as did Pigott and the nurse, the former taking the baby with her.

Hilda motioned to him to come close to her.  He came, and bent over and kissed her, and she, with an effort, threw one ivory arm around his neck, and smiled sweetly.  After about a minute, during which she was apparently collecting her thoughts, she spoke in a low voice, and in her native tongue.