How beautiful she was in her white gown, with her little hand uplifted to display the shining stone, and her face upturned to his! The soft warm curve of the delicate breast and throat, the red lips that seemed to breathe pure kisses and holy words, the tender eyes shining like the jewel, dewy with the sacred tears she had been shedding, and the yellow hair, smooth, glossy, brushed saintly-wise on either side of the nunlike brow--all this he looked at, and his senses grew confused.

The sad rise and fall of the Hebrew chant was in his ears again; the bright room and the people were not there, but the chant seemed in some strange way to rise up in folds of darkness and surround Violetta like a frame; and everything else was dark and filled with the music, except Violetta, who stood there white and shining, holding up the ring for him to look at; and at her feet lay that other woman, wet and dead, with the same stone in the steel chain at her throat.

'Isn't it lovely?
Isn't mamma very kind ?' Violetta was saying.
'My dear, I think he is ill,' said the vicar.
They took him by the arm, putting him on a chair, and fetched water and a glass of wine.

He heard them talking together.
'I daresay it has been too much for him,' said the dean.

'Joy is often as hard to bear as grief.' 'He is such a fellow for work,' said the vicar, 'I never knew any one like him.' The curate sat up quite straight.