Audrey

When he was gone, Haward, left alone, looked for a while upon the heights

of stars. "I too shall dream to-night," he breathed to himself. "To-morrow

all will be well." His gaze falling from the splendor of the skies to the

swaying trees, gaunt, bare, and murmuring of their loss to the hurrying

river, sadness and vague fear took sudden possession of his soul. He spoke

her name over and over; he left the house and went into the garden. It was

the garden of the dying year, and the change that in the morning he had

smiled to see now appalled him. He would have had it June again. Now, when

on the morrow he and Audrey should pass through the garden, it must be

down dank and leaf-strewn paths, past yellow and broken stalks, with here

and there wan ghosts of flowers.

He came to the dial, and, bending, pressed his lips against the carven

words that, so often as they had stood there together, she had traced with

her finger. "Love! thou mighty alchemist!" he breathed. "Life! that may

now be gold, now iron, but never again dull lead! Death"--He paused; then,

"There shall be no death," he said, and left the withered garden for the

lonely, echoing house.