She died the evening before he arrived.

But she had left a letter, written days before, against the chance of his not reaching her before the end.

That letter, in her fine French hand, was before him now.
"I will not try to thank you, dearest friend," she wrote.

"For the thing that you have done, what payment is there in poor thanks?
Oh, Everard, Everard! Had it but pleased God to have helped me to a wiser choice when it was mine to choose!" she cried to him from that letter, and poor Everard deemed that the thin ray of joy her words sent through his anguished soul was payment more than enough for the little that he had done.

"God's will be done!" she continued.