dear wife, that I should seem to neglect you, after our talk this morning! I wandered farther than I meant to go, lured on by the grandeur of the scenery-those stupendous cliffs, and the stormy sea, Tintagel, with its grim walls and romantic legends. I have been steeping myself in the wild beauty of this coast, finer than I had ever imagined it. It was dusk when I found myself in a fishing-village under the cliff, and found that I had a long way to walk home. How pale you look! Has the end come?"

"No, he is living still; but he lies half asleep. He opens his eyes sometimes and looks at the watchers, but gives no sign of recognition. Dr. Walsh thinks that consciousness has gone, never to return. Never to return here. I can but think of him as if he were now among the blessed souls in heaven."

"Ah, that is the mystery. Even your creed is vague and wavering upon that question. In a paradise of dreamless sleep, or before the throne of God? You have no promise or assurance."

"In my Father's house are many mansions,"" murmured Rachel.

"Vague, all vague! The children of Israel-God's chosen people-had no promise of the after-life. They were groping in the dark, and never thought that when they did well or ill they were choosing between eternal felicity and eternal pain."

“Christ brought us the promise. We can trust Him."

"Well, St. Just's life on earth was the ideal life-St. Paul's ideal to spend and to be spent for others. He can face the great mystery without fear of the issue. Come what may, he has his reward-rest from toil, or joy unspeakable in the world we know not. Have you been with him lately?"

"I was with him for an hour this morning; and then he said good-bye, and I went away to hide my tears. Dr. Walsh thought it best that he should be alone after that. I have been sitting in my room all day. Nurse Marian has come to me from time to time and told me about him. She is a good nurse; but not so sympathetic as Nurse Ethel."

They went into the house together, and the old butler, who had been on the watch for them, ushered them into

the dining-room, where all things were in readiness for the long-deferred dinner.

Rachel urged her husband to eat, having discovered that he had taken nothing all day; but she did not tell him that her only refreshment had been the tea that Nurse Marian had persuaded her to take at five o'clock.

The dinner was a mere pretence of a meal, in spite of the butler's tender ministrations. Who could eat in a house towards whose door the fatal footstep was approaching? Husband and wife sat in silence, listening for that other step on the old oak staircase, the step of the doctor coming to tell them of the end.

XXII.

THE thin-spun thread held out longer than Dr. Walsh expected. Midnight struck from the big clock in the stable-yard, and St. Just still lived. He lived; but the end seemed very near-the inevitable end.

"He is sinking fast," Walsh whispered to the night-nurse, who had just taken her place at the bedside. "He will sleep till the last, most likely. I shall go and lie down in my clothes, for an hour or two. Be sure you call me if there is any change."

The nurse sat in the large armchair, watching the slumbering form, the wasted hand lying waxen white on the crimson silk coverlet. She watched the dying man with reverent gaze, knowing what manner of life he had led-a soldier of Christ, disbanded in the thick of the battle, but leaving his record of work well done, having borne such witness as few men bear to the faith that was in him-the implicit childlike faith which had been a lantern to light his steps, and a lamp shining in the distance, far away, at the end of the earthly vista, to beckon and guide him home.

Nurse Ethel was a religious woman, a member of that sect which has taken so strong a hold in the West of England-the Bible Christians. For her the solution of all life's enigmas was to be found in Holy Writ. She went to her Bible for comfort and guidance, in every sorrow and in every difficulty. And now, sitting in the silent room, in the dim light of the night-lamp, she thought of the Shunammite woman's son, and the Prophet of Israel, who gave the boy living to his mother's arms, the boy who had been dead.

Dr. Walsh had told her that there was no hope-none; but he looked at all things from his own narrow standpoint

of the hospital and the dissecting-room. He spoke as a man in whom faith was utterly wanting. Alas! for the simple faith of old, the faith that made the Shunammite mother invoke the Prophet's power, albeit her child was dead. Here death had not yet come; but a good man lay sick, and in case so desperate that mortal hand could not prolong his life by a single hour. But God's hand could. There was no need of the Prophet of Israel, gifted with supernatural power. There was no need of any human intervener. The hand of Omnipotence, the invisible hand that kills and makes alive, need but to be stretched out over that dying head, and death would flee away, and life would come back to the friend of the sorrowing and the poor.

Nurse Ethel sank upon her knees beside the bed, bowed her face upon the coverlet, and prayed with the fervour of those who know not written prayer, the wild outpouring of an enthusiastic piety, belief that knew no bounds, an imagination that soared to the throne of God, and aspired even in this life to a familiar communing with Christ and His saints.

"My Redeemer and my Saviour, Saviour of Mankind, canst Thou suffer the death of this good man? Oh, loving Jesus, Thou who carest for the poor, look down and save Thy disciple and servant."

She

She lost herself in an ecstasy of prayer; lost count of time, lost consciousness of outer things-even of that motionless figure on the bed-in the fervour of supplications which she thought must needs be answered. had been taught the efficacy of prayer, taught to believe in a Divine Friend whose ear was always open to the cry of the poor; and it was for them, for the poor and the forsaken, that she was pleading.

A window at the end of the room had been kept open to give air to the patient, and the wind had been rising since midnight. It was a freezing blast that startled Nurse Ethel from her ecstasy, and made her suddenly conscious of the wild shriek of the storm, shrill and loud, with a something human in its note; like the cry of a giant in agony.

She started to her feet, and bent over the bed to look

and listen. The blanched face, the utter stillness, thrilled her with a sudden awe. She held her cheek above the lips of the patient. No breath touched it. She laid her ear

above his heart; and there was no sound. "Oh, God, hast Thou no mercy?" While she had prayed, lifting her soul to heaven, full of faith and hope, the life she pleaded for had fled. God had refused to hear. Jesus had made no intercession. What power could she hope to exercise, she who had lived the life of common mortals, she who was not as the Man of God, the anchorite, the earthly saint, whose life had been sacrifice and obedience? Why should her prayers be answered; unselfish as they were, supplicating for the life of one whose face she had seen for the first time only yesterday?

The enthusiast remembered that she was a nurse on duty, and crept across the corridor to awaken the doctor. The light tap on the door roused that light sleeper, and Walsh answered her summons instantly, in shirt-sleeves and slippered feet.

"Well?" he asked, as he followed the nurse to St. Just's

room.

"He is gone, sir."

"He went off quietly, as I expected?"

"He passed away in his sleep, without a struggle, without a groan."

Walsh bent over the bed for a minute in silence.

"You are mistaken, nurse," he said. "Lord St. Just is not dead."

“Oh, sir, there was not a breath from his lips, his hand was like marble."

Walsh plucked off the handkerchief which she had folded round the shrunken face.

"There is warmth and life in the hand now, and the pulse is stronger than it was this morning."

"Oh, God, I thank thee!" cried Nurse Ethel, bursting into tears.

"I had been praying for him, Dr. Walsh; praying that a good man's life might be spared," she said presently.

"Well, we shall see if your prayers are to be answered by your patient's recovery. I'm afraid that's out of the question. I have seen miraculous cures, Nurse Ethel,