"
"With this little candle? No, no, dear--_my_ dear. You will be a great
man. You will not forget; but you will go on and do the things that I'm
afraid I didn't help, maybe hindered, you in trying to do. And you will
keep a little room in your heart, a very little room. And I shall be in
there. And you'll open the door every once in a while and come in and take
me in your arms and kiss me. And I think--yes, I feel that--that I shall
know and thrill."
Her voice sank lower and lower and then her eyes closed, and presently he
called the nurse.
The next day he rose from his bed, just at the connecting door between his
room and hers, and looked in at her. The shades were drawn and only a faint
light crept into the room. He thought he saw her stir and went nearer.
"Why, they've made you very gay this morning," he laughed, "with the red
ribbons at your neck."
There was no answer. He came still nearer. The red ribbons were long
streamers of blood. She was dead.
VIII.
A STRUGGLE FOR SELF-CONTROL.
He left her at Asheville as she wished--"where I have been happiest and
where I wish you to think of me." On the train coming north he reviewed his
past and made his plans for the future.
As to the past he had only one regret--that he had not learned to
appreciate Alice until too late.
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