The passage was long and tedious.  Before reaching our destination my hopes of Evelyn’s recovery had vanished.  Her demeanor was so gentle, childlike and affectionate, my heart was wrung with anguish.  I could not break her sweet serenity by disclosing the fate which was impending.  She seemed to have reached a period of the most holy and perfect satisfaction.  All the suppressed bitterness of former years—­all the earnest resolution of the later time—­had vanished, and she rested happy in the enjoyment of our mutual love.  This quiet assisted the process of destruction.  Had there been something to rouse her old energy, I am confident she would have made a desperate, perhaps successful, struggle for life.  But I could not force myself to excite it by a warning against the insidious destroyer.

On our arrival she was in a deplorable condition of weakness.  She imputed this debility to the voyage.  Day by day I saw the flame of life dwindling, but she was unsuspicious, and only wondered that her recovery was so slow.  Once, as she was watching, in a half-declining position, the setting sun, and talking of the happy days to come, I could contain myself no longer, but burst forth into a frenzy of sobbing.

‘Evelyn,’ I said, ’you are dying.  You know it not, but, oh God, it is true.  You are dying before me, and I can not save you.  Perhaps it is too late for you to save yourself.’

At first she supposed that my emotion was only the undue result of anxiety for her, but as I grew calmer, and told her more precisely my meaning, and the causes of my fears, she said, with something of her old firmness,—­

’If this be true, let me become fully convinced.  Call in Dr. ——­, and leave me alone with him.  I have not thought of dying, but should have known that my present happiness was too exquisite to last.’

I sent in the doctor, and he told her all.  What passed between us, on my return, is too sacred for relation.  It is enough that the bitterness of that hour filled all the capacity of the human heart for anguish and despair.  Afterwards we became more reconciled to the dispositions of Heaven.

The history of her gradual decline need not be related—­the hopes, the suspense, the disappointments—­the reviving indications of health, the increasing symptoms of fatal disease—­the flush and brilliancy as of exuberant vitality—­the fading of all the hues of life—­all the vicissitudes of the unrelenting progress of decay—­one after another, resolving themselves into the lineaments of death.

It was indeed too late.

Frank still remained in Florence, but had discarded the society of his bachelor friends for that of the young lady previously mentioned, who was now entitled to call him husband.

Soon after our arrival I called upon him, announced Evelyn’s illness, with its hopeless character.  The young man was shocked.  He had never thought of disease or death in connection with Evelyn.  Who could?  Besides, I could read in his face a horror mixed with thankfulness at the escape, as his memory recalled the madness which would have urged to guilt, her who was about to leave the scenes of earthly passion.  I invited him to return with me.  He did so, and I left him alone with Evelyn.  I knew that his presence would now give her no shock.