[Wiki2man-develop] Oup of angels that shook their wings and stood around him as he slept.

[<wik...@li...>]

M all the sadness of a last farewell. Crystal even had felt a tinge of
remorse--when she saw how sad he was--that she had not responded more
warmly to his kiss. It almost seemed as if her heart rebelled against
it, and when he pressed her with his accustomed passionate ardour to his
breast, she had felt a curious shrinking within herself, a desire to
push him away, even though her whole heart went out to him with pity and
with sorrow. And now here was this letter. Crystal was a long time
before she made up her mind to open it: the paper--damp with the
rain--seemed to hold a certain fatefulness within its folds. At last she
read the letter, and long after she had read it she sat at the open
window, listening to the dreary, monotonous patter of the rain, and to
the distant sounds of moving horses and men, the rattle of wheels, the
bugle calls, the departure of the allied troops to meet the armies of
the great adventurer on the billowing plains of Belgium. This is what
Maurice had written to her a few moments before he left; and it must
have taken him some time to pen the lengthy epistle. "MY BEAUTIFUL
CRYSTAL, "I may never come back. Something tells me that my life, such
as it is--empty and worthless enough, God knows--has nearly run its full
course. But if I do come back to claim the happiness which your love
holds out for me,--I will not face you again with so deep a stain upon
mine honour. I did not tell you before because I was too great a coward.
I could not bear to think that you would despise me--I could not
encounter the look of contempt in your eyes: so I remained silent to the
call of honour. And now I spea