She made a gesture for him to leave her, but did not unclose her eyes.  She could not look upon him, find know it was the last, last time, but she offered no remonstrance when he left, upon her lips a kiss so full of hopeless and yearning tenderness that it burned there many a day after he was gone.  She heard him turn away, heard him cross the floor, knew he paused upon the threshold, and still her eye-lids never opened, though the hot tears rained over her face in torrents.

“The sweetest joy I have ever known was my love for you, Edith Hastings,” he whispered, and then the door was closed between them.

Down the winding stairs he went, Edith counting every step, for until all sound of him had ceased she could not feel that they were parted forever.  The sounds did cease at last, he had bidden Richard a calm good-bye, had said good-bye to Victor, and now he was going from the house.  He would soon be out of sight, and with an intense desire to stamp his image upon her mind just as he was now, the changed, repentant Arthur, Edith arose, and tottering to the window, looked after him, through blinding tears, as he passed slowly from her sight, and then crawling, rather than walking back to her bed, she wept herself to sleep.

It was a heavy, unnatural slumber, and when she awoke from it, the fever returned with redoubted violence, bringing her a second time so near the gates of death that Arthur St. Claire deferred his departure for several days, and Nina became again the nurse of the sick room.  But all in vain were her soft caresses and words of love.  Edith was unconscious of everything, and did not even know when Nina’s farewell kiss was pressed upon her lips and Nina’s gentle hands smoothed her hair for the last time.  A vague remembrance she had of an angel flitting around the room, a bright-haired seraph, who held her up from sinking in the deep, dark river, pointing to the friendly shore where life and safety lay, and this was all she knew of a parting which had wrung tears from every one who witnessed it, for there was something wonderfully touching in the way the crazy Nina bade adieu to “Miggie,” lamenting that she must leave her amid the cold northern hills, and bidding her come to the southland, where the magnolias were growing and flowers were blossoming all the day long.  Seizing the scissors, which lay upon the stand, she severed one of her golden curls, and placing it on Edith’s pillow, glided from the room, followed by the blessing of those who had learned to love the beautiful little girl as such as she deserved to be loved.

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