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 death-throe 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 afterward did she prove herself
unworthy of her haughty lover, by demonstrating or parading her sorrows.
Many others besides her have taken for their motto, "The 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.
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