Do not repent that, with so
high and pure a feeling, you have rejected the best the earth could
offer. Aylmer, dearest Aylmer, I am dying!"
Alas! it was too true! The fatal hand had grappled with the mystery
of life, and was the bond by which an angelic spirit kept itself in
union with a mortal frame. As the last crimson tint of the
birthmark--that sole token of human imperfection--faded from her cheek,
the parting breath of the now perfect woman passed into the atmosphere,
and her soul, lingering a moment near her husband, took its heavenward
flight. Then a hoarse, chuckling laugh was heard again! Thus ever does
the gross fatality of earth exult in its invariable triumph over the
immortal essence which, in this dim sphere of half development, demands
the completeness of a higher state. Yet, had Aylmer reached a
profounder wisdom, he need not thus have flung away the happiness which
would have woven his mortal life of the self-same texture with the
celestial. The momentary circumstance was too strong for him; he failed
to look beyond the shadowy scope of time, and, living once for all in
eternity, to find the perfect future in the present.
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