orm his emaciated features.
She would have spoken to him; but he made a gesture as though for
silence, and again that awful sense of separation seemed to pass
between them. Mr. Carlyon put down his book, and looked too at the
wondrous pageant of the sea and sky. "The bridegroom has run his race,"
murmured David in a strange voice. "What regal robes of gold and
crimson! Father, this is the best sunset we have seen yet."

"Ay, that it is, David," returned Mr. Carlyon; "but you are looking
weary, my boy, and I must be getting you to bed. Will you ring for
Nurse Gibbon, Elizabeth?" But as she did so she noticed how feebly
David walked, and how heavily he leant on his father's arm.

Half an hour later, as Elizabeth was standing on the balcony enjoying
the cool spring air, she heard Mr. Carlyon call her loudly. Then a bell
rang, and she and Dinah rushed into David's room. One look at the
changed, livid face told them the truth. Dinah sent off for the doctor,
and she and Elizabeth tried all possible remedies, but in vain. Sudden
collapse had set in. David could not speak; but for one moment his
dying eyes rested on Elizabeth's face, and his last act of
consciousness was to try to put her hand in his father's.

"I understand, David," Elizabeth stooped and whispered into his dull
ear. "Yes, we will take care of each other, and comfort each other;"
and then a faint, flickering smile seemed to cross his face, but the
next moment unconsciousness set in. For hours Elizabeth knelt beside
him with her arm supporting the pillow under his head, while on the
other side the stricken father offered up supplications for his dying
son. When his voice quavered and broke with human weakness, and Dinah
begged him to spare himself, he shook his gray head. "Maybe he hears
me--I will go as far as I can with him down the valley of the shadow of
death," And then he folded his trembling hands together. "Oh,
David--David, would God I had died for thee, my son--my son!"

"It was very sudden," wrote Dinah to Malcolm the next morning. "Dear
David had seemed so much better that day; but Dr. Hewlitt had warned us
of probable collapse and heart-failure."

"He had only left us half an hour, and Mr. Carlyon was reading the
Evening Psalms to him, when he saw a change in him and called to us."

"I am sure David knew us when we went in, but he could not speak, and
then unconsciousness came on. The end was so quiet that we hardly knew
when he left us. We ha