sumed more distinctness, he became aware of the figure of a woman sitting on the ground by the side of his couch-her head buried in her hands-rocking herself ever to and fro, and never pausing in her low, heartbroken wail. If old tales speak truth, such a figure might be seen in dark corners of haunted houses; and such a wail might echo at dead of night through chambers conscious of some fearful crime. Instinct, more than reason, revealed to Royston the truth.

The lips that under the thrusts of Russian lances, and through all subsequent tortures, had guarded so jealously the secret of his agony, could not repress a groan, as they syllabled the name of-Cecil Tresilyan.

It was so. The brilliant beauty who, for two seasons had ruled the world in which she moved so imperiously-insatiate of conquest and defying rivalry-the delicate aristocrate, who from her childhood had been used to every imaginable luxury, and had appreciated them all-was found again, here, in the grey robe of a Sister of Charity, content to endure real, bitter hardships, and to witness, daily, sights from which womanhood, with all its bravery, must needs recoil.

The motives that had urged her to such a step would be hard indeed to define. The same weariness and impatience of inaction, that have been alluded to in the case of Royston Keene, may have had much to do with it; to this, perhaps, was added a feeling of wild remorse, seeking to vent itself in self-torturing penance, such as impelled kings and conquerors in old days to don the palmer's gown, and macerate their bodies by fast and scourge; there may have been, too, some vague, unacknowledged longing, to seize the last chance of seeing her lost love once again. Might she

not tend him as she nursed the other wounded, without adding to the weight of her sin? If she ever entertained such an idea, her punishment may well have atoned for her offence, when she came suddenly and unprepared into that sick chamber, and looked upon the mangled wreck lying senseless there. Royston spoke first. 'What

brought you here?" If it was possible that he could feel anything like terror, surely the hollow, tremulous voice betrayed it then.

Cecil Tresilyan sprang to her feet as if an electric shock had moved her, and stood gazing at him with her great, desolate, tearless eyes: all her misery could not make them hard or haggard, nor dispel their marvellous enchantment. Royston marked the impulse that would have drawn her to his side, and threw out one weak hand to warn her off; with the other he tried to cover his own scarred, ghastly face. Don't come near me,' he muttered; 'I can't bear it.' Her woman's instinct fathomed his meaning instantly: he thought that even she must shrink from him. She laughed out loud (for her brain was almost turning) as she knelt down and raised his head on her arm, and smoothed his matted hair, and kissed the deathdamp from his forehead, murmuring between the caresses, You dare not keep me from you. Do you think that I fear you, my own-my own!'

The glory of a great triumphgrand, even if sinful-lighted up the face of the dying man; and intense passion made even his voice strong and steady. I believe this is better than the paradise we dreamed of, in the island of the Greek Sea!'

Without a moment's pause the sweet, sad voice replied

'Yes, it is better. Then I should have died first, and hopelessly. Now there is no guilt between us that may not be forgiven.'

Šilence lasted, till Royston ga. thered energy to speak again.

You remember the glove? See -I have not parted with it yet. He drew from his breast a case of steel links hung round his neck by a chain it held Cecil's gauntletstained and stiffened with his blood. That was the treasure he would not resign when he lay on the ground, waiting for the Russian lances. You did not think that I should forget you, because I never answered your letter ?'

As had happened once before, a portion of his fortitude and selfcommand seemed transfused into Cecil Tresilyan. She spoke quite steadily now.

'How could I misjudge your silence, when I begged you not to write? I have been very miserable, thinking how angry you would be; and yet I could not help what I did. But I never fancied you had forgotten me. Forgetting is not so easy. Now tell me about yourself. I have heard of that glorious charge. But those terrible wounds-how you must have suffered!'

Out of the dim, glazing eyes flashed for one moment, a gleam of soldierly pride. Yes, we rode straight, on the twenty-fifth- I amongst the rest. I suppose I have suffered some pain, but that is all past and gone. I am sensible of nothing but the happiness of holding your little hand once more. See-I can hold it without shame, for my fingers have not pressed those of any woman alive, since we parted.'

She saw how the utterance of those few words told upon him; and refrained from the delight of listening longer to the voice, that was still to her inexpressibly dear. So she checked him, when he would have gone on speaking. Yet the silence that ensued was first broken by Cecil.

'My own! I fear-I fear, that you are in great danger. How long we may both have to suffer, God alone can tell. But will you not see a clergyman? He might help you, though I am weak and powerless.'

A shadow of the old sardonic scorn swept across Keene's emaciated face, and passed away as suddenly. 'It is somewhat late for any help that priests can bring. Besides, I cannot dwell now on any of my past sins, save one. All my thoughts are taken up with the wrong that I have done to you.'

This was true. If there were reproachful phantoms that had a right to haunt Royston's death-bed, the living presence kept them all at bay.

Cecil's eyes had never been more eloquent than they were then; but they spoke of nothing but despair.

Ah, heaven! cannot you see, that all I have to forgive has been forgiven long ago? What is to become of me, if you die hardened in your sin? Must I live on, hoping that we are parted for ever? If

601

you are pitiless to your own soulhave mercy, at least, upon me!'

All Royston's former crimes seemed to him venial by comparison, as he witnessed the misery and abasement of the glorious creature on whom he had brought such sorrow, if not shame. The remorse that a strong will and hard heart had stifled so long, found voice at last in three muttered words-' God forgive me!'

A very niggardly and inadequate expression of contrition was it not? conceded to a life whose sins outnumbered its years. Yet the slight thread of hope drawn therefrom has been able, since, to hold back Cecil Tresilyan from the abyss of utter desperation. She forbore to press him further then, seeing his increasing weakness, and trusting, perhaps, that a more favourable opportunity would come.

Indeed, there were a thousand things to be said about the past, in which both had borne a part, and the future, in which only one could share; but Royston had estimated rightly the extent of his remaining physical resources; and, when he found how each syllable exhausted him, he became as chary of his words as a miser of his gold. His right hand still grasped hers, firmly; and her delicate cheek was pillowed on his shoulder; the fingers of his other hand played gently with a long, glossy chestnut tress that had escaped from the prison of the close cap she wore. So they remained, for a long time-no sound passing between them, beyond half-formed whispers of endearment: no one came in to molest them: there was work enough and to spare, that night, for all in Scutari. The thought of interruption never crossed Cecil's mind for an instant. Always careless and defiant of conventionality, or the world's opinion, she was tenfold more reckless now. Her head was bent down, and her eyes closed; so that she could not see how the hollows deepened on her lover's face; nor how the pallor of his cheek darkened rapidly to an ashen-grey. But inward warnings of approaching dissolution spoke plainly enough to Royston Keene. He knew what he had to do.

He raised her head from where it rested, and said-so gently-'If my time is short, there is the more reason that I should be loth to lose you, even for an hour. But you must have rest; and I feel as if I could sleep. Do not try to persuade me; but leave me now. When you think hereafter of this evening, remember what my last words were -I loved you, best of all. Darling -wish me good night; and come to see me early to-morrow.'

He guessed, full well, how long that Night would last; and what sight would meet Cecil on the morrow; but he was resolute to spare her one additional pang; and so, endured alone the whole burden of the parting agony. His whole life had been full of deeds of reckless daring; but, in good truth, this achievement was its very crown of courage.

Now, as heretofore, Cecil was incapable of resisting any one of his expressed wishes or commands; besides this, physical exhaustion was beginning to overcome her; and she, too, felt that it was time to go.

She leant down, without speaking, and their lips met in a long, passionate kiss. So little of vitality lingered in Royston's, that they remained still icy-cold under the pressure of these ripe, red roses.

I will come again, early,' she whispered.

The last relics of a strength that had been superhuman, passed into the lingering pressure of the hand that bade her tenderly farewell. Half an hour later the surgeon came to Royston Keene. All that night, shrieks and groans, and other sounds through which human agony finds a vent, had been ringing in his ears, till they were weary of the din; but the silence of that chamber struck the visitor yet more painfully. He looked, for a second, gravely at the motionless figure; and laid his ear against the lips; no breath issued thence that would have stirred a feather; then he drew very gently the sheet over the dead man's face-a quiet, steadfast face-that, even in the deaththroe, had retained its proud, placid calm.

When Cecil Tresilyan saw that same sight the next morning, she did not scream or faint. Neither

then nor afterwards, did she prove herself unworthy of her haughty lover, by demonstrating or parading her sorrows. Many others besides her, have taken for their mottoThe heart knoweth its own bitterness;' and have carried it out to the end, unflinchingly. Verily, they have their reward. If there is little comfort on this side the grave, and only vague hope beyond it, it is something-to escape condolence.

We follow her fortunes no farther. It is needless to give all the details of the hospital service which occupied her till the conclusion of the war set her free; and we will not seek to penetrate into the retreat in the Far West, where she is dwelling still. That grey manor-house guards its secrets well, though it has witnessed, in its time, sorrows and sins that might have wrung a voice from granite. Conscious of many broken hearts and blasted hopes, is the home of the Tresilyans of Tresilyan.

I confess to a certain regret, as the graceful figure vanishes from the stage that never was worthy of her queen-like presence. Was it in dream-land that I saw the Original of the character and face that I have endeavoured, thus roughly, to portray? Perhaps so. But there are visions so near akin to realities, that one's brain grows dizzy in trying to disentangle the two.

It is unfortunate, that the void created by any man's death is by no means proportionate to his intrinsic merits. So it happened that the loss of Royston Keene was felt more than he deserved. Far and wide over the surface of the world's sea, the circles spread, from the spot where his life went down. He was missed not only by his old comrades in arms: men who scarcely knew him by sight, spared some regret to the favourite hero of the Light Dragoons. Mark Waring, in the loneliness of his dreary chambers, gnashed his teeth in bitterness of envy; for he guessed who would be the chief mourner. Armand de Châteaumesnil's remark was characteristic. Hearing that his old opponent had fallen in the front of the battle, he struck his hand impatiently on his crippled limbs, muttering- Sang dieu! Il avait toujours la main

METAPHYSICS.

There is one matter on which Sir A. Alison's knowledge is not much below that of his neighbours. Posterity may say of him as of Zadig, Il savait de la metaphysique ce qu'on a su dans tous les temps, c'est à dire fort peu de chose.' We should like to have had an inkling of his personal convictions; he is just the man to think, or fancy himself to think, with Hegel, that 'being and naught are identical,' and that becoming is a continuous transition from being into naught,' and 'a continuous coming over from naught into being.' He is ignorant of the existence of any British metaphysicians after Stewart and Brown, and of any French metaphysicians whatever. As the name of the eminent in this department is legion,' we can but offer them collectively our warmest congratulations on their escape from the fearful pillory in which names would have been misspelled and doctrines docked and garbled. And they will perhaps find comfort in the eloquent language of the historian, who has thus taught us :-'In that crisis, mind remained true to itself and reasserted its original destiny as the leader of mankind. Intellect ranged itself under its real standard-that of the human race.' It would rejoice the hearts of Kant and Fichte to know how completely Sir A. Alison has reduced them to the condition of subjectivity.

The same remark applies to Locke, who, it seems, traces all our ideas to impressions derived from the senses,' and this in spite of that philosopher's notorious reference of some ideas to reflection. Locke's followers (technically called Sensationalists) he dubs Realists, which term has unfortunately nothing to do with the controversies on the origin of our knowledge, and belongs to the era of Thomas Aquinas and Duns Scotus, and to such of the schoolmen as held the objective reality of 'universals.' The Idealists (who deny the existence of a material world) are described as those who 'contend for the existence of innate ideas;' which view Sir A. Alison

* Vol. v. p. 147–152.

It will hereafter be our duty to elucidate the biblical bias which has garnished the secular paragraphs of this history with popular texts of Scripture and heads of unpublished sermons. At present we have only to express surprise that an author who is perpetually obtruding upon a profane public the proofs of his personal and prayerful piety, should furnish in printed chapter and verse the demonstration of his own unworthiness to take any but the lowest place in the lowest class of an infant Sunday school. He actually asserts that Lutheran Germany at the Refor mation embraced the doctrine of Election,' which Calvinistic dogma is the charitable conviction that a CERTAIN SECT is the object of divine favour, and all others of reprobation. After that, he a Scotchman, living in one of the countries where Election is an article of national faith-goes on to observe that such doctrines may long linger among the peasantry and halfeducated classes, but it is impossible that they can long coexist with general intelligence and reflection; and they speedily melt away before the light of reason.'t What Sir A. Alison has to offer instead of such doctrines' to benighted Scotland, Switzerland, Holland, and Germany, and how he indicates the basis of a 'revival,' will be seen by degrees. For his own part, he believes that there is in every mind, even the strongest, a certain tendency to superstition, and a be

+ Vol. v. p. 153.