Among many vain hopes, one hope had been realised: they had met again.

In the darkened room, her weary eyes could hardly have seen the betrayal of what he suffered — even if she had looked up in his face. She was content to rest her head on his breast, and to feel his arm round her. “I am glad, dear,” she said, “to have lived long enough for this.”

Those were her first words — after the first kiss. She had trembled and sighed, when he ran to her and bent over her: it was the one expression left of all her joy and all her love. But it passed away as other lesser agitations had passed away. One last reserve of energy obeyed the gentle persuasion of love. Silent towards all other friends, she was able to speak to Ovid.

“You used to breathe so lightly,” she said. “How is it that I hear you now. Oh, Ovid, don’t cry! I couldn’t bear that.”

He answered her quietly. “Don’t be afraid, darling; I won’t distress you.”

“And you will let me say, what I want to say?”

“Oh, yes!”

This satisfied her. “I may rest a little now,” she said.

He too was silent; held down by the heavy hand of despair.

The time had been, in the days of his failing health, when the solemn shadows of evening falling over the fields — the soaring song of the lark in the bright heights of the midday sky — the dear lost remembrances that the divine touch of music finds again — brought tears into his eyes. They were dry eyes now! Those once tremulous nerves had gathered steady strength, on the broad prairies and in the roving life. Could trembling sorrow, seeking its way to the sources of tears, overbear the robust vitality that rioted in his blood, whether she lived or whether she died? In those deep breathings that had alarmed her, she had indeed heard the struggle of grief, vainly urging its way to expression against the masterful health and strength that set moral weakness at defiance. Nature had remade this man — and Nature never pities.

It was an effort to her to collect her thoughts — but she did collect them. She was able to tell him what was in her mind.

“Do you think, Ovid, your mother will care much what becomes of me, when I die?”

He started at those dreadful words — so softly, so patiently spoken. “You will live,” he said. “My Carmina, what am I h............