I have known all, I have foreseen all--long! I have learned to think of it, and I can learn by God's help to bear it! And in a little while, a very little while, it will be over, and I shall be at rest.

But you--you, my love----" Her voice broke, her head sunk forward.

His lips met hers in a first kiss; a kiss, salted by the tears that ran unchecked down his face.

For a long minute there was silence in the room, a silence broken only by the low, inarticulate murmur of his love--love whispered brokenly on her tear-wet lips, on her cold, closed eyelids.

She made no attempt to withdraw her face, and presently the murmur grew to words of defiance, of love that mocked at peril, mocked at shame, mocked at death, having assurance of its own, having assurance of her.
They fell on her ears as warm thaw-rain on frozen sward; and slowly into the pallor of her face, the whiteness of her closed eyelids, crept a tender blush.