Clare came to nurse her, and everything that human science and skill could suggest was done to save her.  It was all in vain.

We buried the little child on the Tuesday morning, when the sun was shining and the birds were singing in the trees, and on the Saturday they told us his mother could not live.

It was early on the dawn of the Sunday morning when they sent for me.  She was dying, and wished to speak to me.

I went into her room.  Clare knelt by her side.  She turned her white face to me with a smile.

“Edgar,” she said, “I am glad you have come.  I want to—­to die in your arms.  Bend down to me,” she whispered.  “I want to speak to you.  Will you forgive me?  I can see now how wrong I was, how wicked to love you so much, and how wicked to tell you so.  Will you forgive me, and now that I am dying say one kind word to me, and tell me you can respect me in death?”

I pillowed that dying head on my arm, and told her I should only remember of her what had been kind and good.

“You will only remember that I loved you, Edgar, not that I was unwomanly and wicked?”

“I will forget everything, except that you were my dear cousin and dear friend.”

“You will marry Agatha,” she said, faintly, “and bring her home here.  I hope you will be happy; but, oh!  Edgar—­Edgar—­when she is your wife, and you are so happy together, you will not forget me; you will stroll out sometimes when the dew is falling to look at my grave and say, ’Poor Coralie! how well she loved me—­so well—­so dearly!’ You will do that, Edgar?”

My tears were falling warm and fast on her face.

“Are these your tears?  Then you care a little for me.  Ah, then, I am willing to die!”

And so, with her head pillowed on my arm, and a smile on her lips, she died.

We buried her by the side of Miles Trevelyan.  After life’s fitful fever she sleeps well.

From the first hour of her illness the doctor had no hope for her.  I learned afterward that for some time before the child took the fever she had been ailing and ill.

It was such a strange life.  Thinking over it afterward, it seemed to me more like romance than reality.

A year passed before the dream of my life was fulfilled and Agatha came to Crown Anstey.  I need not to say how happy we were.

Lady Trevelyan is the most beloved and popular lady in the county; our children are growing up good and happy; we have not a care or trouble in the world, and the sharpest pain I have is the memory of Coralie.

[The end.]