Life is splendid! life is kind! life is abounding, deep-cupped! and each minute of it is a prodigal eternity.
Thus it was that one May morning Isabel sat very still in her little room with a telegram just opened on her lap.

The telegram ran: "Jenny is dead and I am dying.

Theophil." And this was the first message Isabel had received from her lover since they had parted at Coalchester station eighteen months ago.
She knew nothing of Theophil's wild visit to her room, for the housemaid had forgotten to mention his call; and the strange and perhaps somewhat cruel silence could, of course, only mean one thing for her,--that Jenny had divined their love, and that for Jenny's happiness Theophil had determined that they must never see each other again.
Yet, even so, it could not have wronged Jenny for him to have sent so much in written words! Had he ceased loving her ?...

No, that she could never believe.

They had _met_ too really for that.