Probably, if there had been no breach in Robert's serenity, Catherine's
poor last effort would have been much feebler, briefer, more hesitating.
But when she saw him plunged for a short space in mortal discouragement,
in a sombreness that as the days went on had its points and crests of
feverish irritation, her anguished pity came to the help of her creed.
Robert felt himself besieged, driven within the citadel, her being
urging, grappling with his. In little half-articulate words and ways, in
her attempts to draw him back to some of their old religious books and
prayers, in those kneeling vigils he often found her maintaining at
night beside him, he felt a persistent attack which nearly--in his
weakness--overthrew him.

For 'reason and thought grow tired like muscles and nerves.' Some of the
greatest and most daring thinkers of the world have felt this pitiful
longing to be at one with those who love them, at whatever cost, before
the last farewell. And the simpler Christian faith has still to create
around it those venerable associations and habits which buttress
individual feebleness and diminish the individual effort.

One early February morning, just before dawn, Robert stretched out his
hand for his wife and found her kneeling beside him. The dim mingled
light showed him her face vaguely--her clasped hands, her eyes. He
looked at her in silence, she at him; there seemed to be a strange shock
as of battle between them. Then he drew her head down to him.

'Catherine,' he said to her in a feeble intense whisper, 'would you
leave me without comfort, without help, at the end?'

'Oh, my beloved!' she cried, under her breath, throwing her arms round
him, 'if you would but stretch out your hand to the true comfort--the
true help--the Lamb of God sacrificed for us!'

He stroked her hair tenderly.

'My weakness might yield--my true best self never. I know Whom I have
believed. Oh, my darling, be content. Your misery, your prayers hold me
back from God--from that truth and that trust which can alone be
honestly mine. Submit, my wife! Leave me in God's hands.'

She raised her head. His eyes were bright with fever, his lips
trembling, his whole look heavenly. She bowed herself again with a quiet
burst of tears, and an indescribable self-abasement. They had had their
last struggle, and once more he had conquered! Afterwards the cloud
lifted from him. Depression and irritation disappeared. It seemed to her
often as though