Rose of the World

tress, "bring me Cap

in the inner marble spaces seemed to take whispering voices of amazement. Then Lady Gerardine, standing straight and impassive by her d

ish's box; br

apped her hands together with the wail of the child

, a

id Lady

the reason of this strange and most unexpected order—an order so out of keeping with the

*

dsome young lord. They could not carry Rosamond back her dead; what soldier's widow can hope for that last tragic comfort? But the few tangible traces he had left behind him; these were hers by right, and to her they were brought, with scarcely less reverence than if they h

alisable sorrow, could not look at them, could not touch the poor memorials. She thrust them back into the battered box away from her sight, and with them all the garnered treasures of her brief girlhood and of her briefer wifehood: the simple keepsake, the dried flowers—sprig from

the horror of the murdered thing that was her youth;

ress's feet and loosened the

she ordered sharply, as once more the ayah hesitated. And Jani slunk away,

surely, if there be anything to which one has a right, i

*

nd costly trinkets which it was Sir Arthur Gerardine's pleasure to provide for the adornment of the most beautiful of all his a

which had been mercifully veiled; she had carried a mortal anguish cunningly lulled to sleep. N

s—that rise of the spirit to meet the inevitable which seldom fails even the lowest human being at the end—broug

*

obacco he had been wont to use, of the Russian-leather pocket-books she had given him; a faint, faint whisper of the English lavender her hands had been so careful to set for

hour. None can escape destiny. Here was the cup she had refused to drain; here were the tears of which she had cheated her heart; he

at it had come from her own lips. Through gathering mists she saw Jani reappear and run towards he

x and let no

lily, straight and long,