It was a few days afterwards that Ida Raughton, when walking up and down the paths at Belmont, heard the sound of carriage-wheels in the road outside, and knew that her lover was coming back to her. He had written from Switzerland saying that Smerdon was dead, and that he should wait to see him buried in the churchyard of St. Christoph--where many other English lay who had perished in the mountains--and he had that morning telegraphed from Paris to tell her that he was coming by the mail, and should be with her in the evening.
She walked swiftly to the house to meet him, but before she could reach it, he had come through the French windows of the morning-room, and advanced towards her.
"You have heard that he is dead, Ida?" he said, when he had kissed her, "it only remains for me to tell you that he died penitent and regretting his crime. It had weighed heavily upon him, and he was glad to go."
"And you forgave him, Gervase?" she asked.
"Yes. I forgave him. I could not but remember--as I saw him stretched there crushed and dying--that, though he had robbed me of a brother whom I must have come to love, he had sinned for me. Yes, if forgiveness belonged to me, I forgave him."
"Until we meet that brother in another world, Gervase, we have nothing but his memory to cherish. We must never forget his noble character."
"It shall be my constant thought," Penlyn answered, "to shape my life to what he would have wished it to be. And, Ida, so long as I live, his memory shall be second only in my heart to your own sweet self. Come, darling, it is growing late let us go in."