"Gianluca!"

Taquisara could not speak, beyond that, but he laid his hand upon his friend's arm and clutched it, as though to hold him back. His dark eyes darkened, and in them were the terrible tears that strong men shed once in life, and sometimes once again, but very seldom more.

Gianluca's thin fingers folded upon the hand that held him.

"You have been very true to me," he said. "She will be quite safe with you."

For a long time they were both silent. It began to rain, and the big drops beat against the windows, melancholy as the m.u.f.fled drum of a funeral march, and the grey morning light grew still more dim.

"I will not go into the other room just yet," said Gianluca, quietly. "I would rather be alone for a little while."

Their eyes met once more, and Taquisara went away without a word.

That had been almost the last act of the strange tragedy of love and death which had been lived out in slow scenes during those many weeks.

It was needful that it should come, and inevitable, soon or late. It began when Gianluca made that one last desperate effort to move, in sudden certainty of hope that ended in the instant foreknowledge of what was to be. A little thing swayed him then--such a little thing as the accident of a sharp foil, a rent in a jacket, the woman's blinding fear for the man she loved. There are many arrows in fate's quiver, and the little ones are as keen as the long shafts, and quicker to find the tender mark.

The man was born to suffer, but he had in him that something divine by which martyrs made death the witness of life and turned despair of earth to sure hope of heaven.

He had ever been a man tender and gentle. His nature did not fail him now. With exquisite devotion and thought for Veronica's happiness, and with a love for her that penetrated the short future of near death, he would not say to her what he had said to Taquisara. He would not let one breath of doubt disturb her only satisfaction while he still lived, nor trouble her with the least fear lest she had not done all her fullest to give him happiness while she could. In the end, it was his love that cut short his living, and no one knew what hours and days and nights of pain he bore, till the end came. He made of his love and his death a way for her life. She had given him all she had. He gave it back to her a hundred-fold, but she should not know, while he lived, that her great gift had not been to him more than she could make it, all that she wished it might be, all that she knew it was not.

He had not far to carry his burden; but except his friend, no one should know the heaviness of his heart, neither his father nor his mother, and least of all, Veronica. He could not hide that he was dying, but he could hide the cost of it, and its bitterness. After that day, his life went from him, as the strength falls away from a ship's sails when the breeze is softly dying on a summer's evening. In fear Veronica watched him, and in fear she met Taquisara's eyes. In the long nights, when it rained and there was no moon, the darkness of death's wings was in the air, and she held her breath, alone in her dim room.

They all knew it, and none said it, though shadow answered shadow in one another's faces when they met. It was as though another element than air had descended amongst them, dull, unresonant, hushing word and tread.

For each life we love is a sun, in our lives that would be dark if there were no love in them, and when it goes down to its setting in our hearts, the last light of love's day is very deep and tender, as no other is after it, and the pa.s.sionate, sad twilight of regret deepens to a darkness of great loneliness over all, until our tears are wept, and our souls take of our mortal selves memories of love undying.

The end came soon, in the night, for it was his will to live that had kept him with them so long. Taquisara was with him. One by one the others came, hastily m.u.f.fled and wrapped in dark robes, for the night was cold and damp even within doors. One after another they came, and they stood and knelt beside him on the right and left. He spoke to them all,--to his father and his mother first, for he felt the tide ebbing.

With streaming eyes Veronica bent down and looked for the fading light in his, through her fast-falling tears. And close to her his mother stretched out weak hands that trembled with every breaking sob. His father knelt there, burying his face against the pillow, shaking all over, his arms hanging down loose and helpless by his sides, bent, bowed, crushed, as a weak old lion, stricken in age and cruelly wounded to death. And above them all, Taquisara's sad, deep-chiselled face looked down, as the face of a bronze statue beside a grave. Without, the winter's rain beat a low dead-march on the great windows, and the southwest wind sighed out its vast breath along the castle walls.

It was long since he had spoken, and they thought that they should never hear his voice again. But still the last light lingered in his eyes.

Very little was left for him to do.

He moved Veronica's right hand, that was in his, drawing it a little, and she let it move; and his other held Taquisara's, and he drew it also, they yielding, till the two touched, and at his dying will clasped one another. Then he smiled faintly, his last smile on earth. And as it faded forever, there came back to them from beyond all pain the words of his blessing upon their two strong young lives.

"Benedicat vos omnipotens Deus--" and the angels heard the rest.

Thus died Gianluca della Spina.

THE END.