"My
peerless bride, it is successful! You are perfect!"
"My poor Aylmer!" she repeated, with a more than human
tenderness. "You have aimed loftily! you have done nobly! 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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