For your sake be it,' he muttered, while his proud lips trembled. 'I believed-I will strive also to forgive.' Tricotrin smiled; the smile of one victorious, but whose victory is wrested from the grave. 'You have paid me all your debt. keep her in gladness and in honour. you-Viva's life.' Be merciful to her; His head fell back, his lungs bled inwardly, exhaustion overcame him; and through the throngs a loud wail went, and echoed once again through all the passage-ways and over the close-standing roofs, till its reverberation shook all silent inmost places into sound, and startled sleeping infants in their cradles, and awakened old and helpless men from their shivering lethargy by their dull hearths." There were movement and agitation in the crowd below; through them there forced her way, in blind, fierce passage, the lofty slender form of a woman, who flew with swift sure feet up the side of the barricade, and came and threw herself beside him where he lay. She saw no other face than his in that burning glow of sunlight; she heard no other sound in all that tempest of emotion, save the cry that he was dead. 'I am too late! too late again-my God!' she cried in her delirium. O, people of Paris! have you no shot, no steel for me? What was I once among you?-a stray and homeless thing, fed on his alms, saved by his mercy, reared in honour and in innocence through him alone. And I forsook him, I denied him, I was ashamed of my debt, I was apostate to his love. Kill me with him if you have pity in you. I am viler In her madness, the truth seemed to her all the atonement that was left; in her remorse, the vengeance that she forced upon herself was wider, deeper, more cruel, than any vengeance that men take on guilt. There was a terrible justice in her expiation :-to the people whom she had scorned with all the gay scorn of her proud life, from the childish days when she had trodden on her vine-crown, her confession and her humiliation were now rendered. than the vilest in your streets!' To the multitude the words bore no meaning; and her voice was drowned in the moan of their own lamentation, that was loud as the moan of the sea. But he heard, and his eyelids unclosed, and his gaze dwelt on her in that speechless and immeasurable love of which never in one hour of her life had she once been worthy-until now. 'Viva mine,' he murmured in the old, sweet, familiar phrase of other days, thou dost wrong to thyself. Thy sins have been but a woman's foibles. I forgave them long ago. Truth is with thee now, let it abide with thee for ever. Where truth is not, how shall there be peace? In his love thou wilt have no need of mine. Have no memory of my life save such as may be glad to thee. I made thy happiness-once. Remember only that. I die content. I have saved all these from slaughter,-these children,-they may yet be great men, and free. Life has been sweet,-ah, God!-but death is welcome. Stoop down and kiss me once-once-it will leave no shame on thy lips for him.' For awhile he rested, motionless, breathless, with his eyes blind to the light, and his ear hearing no more the wail of the anguish beneath him. Then suddenly he raised himself erect, and looked upon the great still crowd below, and upward at the summer skies. Earth had been ever so fair to him, and men so well-beloved; and never again would his sight behold the greenness of the summer world, or the faces of his brethren. 'Let my death be the ransom of your lives,' he cried to them, while all the strength and sweetness of his voice returned, and rang over the stricken multitude. 'Keep my memory in your hearts a little while. If it come ever between you and any guilt, I shall not have lived my life in vain. You suffer for me now?-ah! how soon will you forget? Stand back, and let me see the sun once more-once more: it is the smile of God.' And, looking upward to the last, he died. Over the whole city a great silence fell; and with that hour the slaughter ceased. Even as he had loved them in his life, so in his death he saved them. And the people mourned, refusing to be comforted. THE END. |