eyes. She was over kneeling by
the bedside, holding his hands in hers--how, she could never have
told.

"I am sorry--I am sorry!" It was all she could say. In that hour,
in the presence of death, she forgot everything, her wrongs, her
. She only knew that he was dying, and that he loved
her as she would never be loved again in this world.

"It is better as it is," she heard him saying, when she could hear at
all, for the dull, rushing sound in her ears; "far better--far better.
My life was --could never have been anything else, though I
lived fifty years. I was so young--life looked so long, that there
were times, yes, Edith, times when for hours I sat debating within
myself a suicide's cowardly end. But Heaven has saved me from that.
Death has mercifully come of itself to set all  straight, and
oh, my darling! to bring _you_."

She laid her face upon his wasted hand, nearer loving him in his
death than she had ever been in his life.

"You have suffered," he said tenderly, looking at her. "I thought