So long as they might, they would sit together in the sun of life.

For a little longer they would say, "How wonderful life is!"-- for a little longer make sure of each other.
Your eyes, Isabel! Your hair, Isabel! Your dear mouth, Isabel! A little longer.
"Shall we go to-night ?" "Not yet...perhaps to-morrow, Isabel." But Theophil was now very near death, and he might forget if he lingered on much more.

Not wearily, but with music and singing must they pass through the strange gate of Death.
So at length, one June evening, Isabel made for them one last little feast,--once more wine and great grapes set out upon a little table at Theophil's bedside; and on the table, too, was the little sealed packet Isabel had taken from the cupboard in her desk.
Drawing her chair close up to his pillow, she poured out their wine, and they drank it and ate the grapes together,--no happier people in God's strange world.
As the feast neared its end, Isabel rose, and stirring the little fire into a blaze, turned out the lamps, so that the room was lit only with the light from the fire.

Then she refilled their glasses with wine, and breaking the seal of the little white packet, took from it a small bottle of green crystal, the contents of which she mingled with the wine.
Then she and Theophil held up their glasses to each other.
"Let us go deeper into the wood," she said softly.
"How wonderful life has been!" said Theophil; and the two drank, with their eyes firm and sweet upon each other.
Then Isabel sat down again by Theophil's side, and leaning her head against his on the pillow, she took his hand.

And the room became a heaven of silence.
Whoso would say of these two lives, "How sad!" let him consider the quality of his own happiness; and whoso would regard the life of Theophilus Londonderry as a failure, let him, too, consider the value of his own success..