He held up his little thin hand, peering at the light between the
transparent fingers. "To think," he said slowly, with a puzzled smile,
"to think that this is going to be still! It has never been any power in
the world; I don't know that it has ever done any harm, yet it has
certainly never done any good; but soon it will be still. How strange,
how strange! And where shall I be? Knowing--or perhaps fallen on an
eternal sleep. How does it seem to you, doctor? That was what I wanted to
ask you; do you feel sure of anything--afterwards?"

The rector could not escape the penetrating gaze of those strangely
bright brown eyes. He looked into them, and then wavered and turned away.

"Do you?" said the lawyer.

The other put his hands up to his face a moment.

"Ah!" he answered sharply, "I don't know--I can't tell. I--I don't know,
Denner!"

"No," replied Mr. Denner, with tranquil satisfaction, "I supposed not,--I
supposed not. But when a man gets where I am, it seems the one thing in
the world worth being sure of."

Dr. Howe sat silently holding the lawyer's hand, and Mr. Denner seemed to
sink into pleasant thought. Once he smiled, with that puzzled, happy look
the rector had seen before, and then he closed his eyes contentedly as
though to doze. Suddenly he turned his head and looked out of the window,
across his garden, where a few old-fashioned flowers were blooming
sparsely, with much space between them for the rich, soft grass, which
seemed to hold the swinging shadows of an elm-tree in a lacy tangle.

"'The warm precincts of the cheerful day,'" he murmured, and then his
eyes wandered about the room: the empty, blackened fireplace, where, on
a charred log and a heap of gray ashes, a single bar of sunshine had
fallen; his fiddle, lying on a heap of manuscript music; the one or two
formal portraits of the women of his family; and the large painting of
Admiral Denner in red coat and gold lace. On each one he lingered with a
loving, wondering gaze. "'The place thereof shall know it'"--he began
to say. "Ah, doctor, it is a wonderful book! How it does know the heart!
The soul sees itself there. 'As for man, his days are as grass; as a
flower of the field, so he flourisheth. For the wind passeth over it, and
it is gone; and the place thereof shall know it no more'--no more. That
is the wonder of it! How strange it is; and I had such plans for life,
now! Well, it is better thus, no doubt,--no doubt."

After a while he t