it, and motioned to him to rise. He called his oldest
friend by name. And Colonel Carvel came from the corner where he had been
listening, with his face drawn.

"Good-by, Comyn. You were my friend when there was none other. You were
true to me when the hand of every man was against me. You--you have
risked your life to come to me here, May God spare it for Virginia."

At the sound of her name, the girl started. She came and bent over him.
And when she kissed him on the forehead, he trembled.

"Uncle Silas!" she faltered.

Weakly he reached up and put his hands on her shoulders. He whispered in
her ear. The tears came and lay wet upon her lashes as she undid the
button at his throat.

There, on a piece of cotton twine, hung a little key, She took it off,
but still his hands held her.

"I have saved it for you, my dear," he said. "God bless you--" why did
his eyes seek Stephen's?--"and make your life happy. Virginia--will you
play my hymn--once more--once more?"

They lifted the night lamp from the piano, and the medicine. It was
Stephen who stripped it of the black cloth it had worn, who stood by
Virginia ready to lift the lid when she had turned the lock. The girl's
exaltation gave a trembling touch divine to the well-remembered chords,
and those who heard were lifted, lifted far above and beyond the power of
earthly spell.

"Lead, Kindly Light, amid the encircling gloom
Lead Thou me on
The night is dark, and I am far from home;
Lead Thou me on.
Keep Thou my feet! I do not ask to see
The distant scene; one step enough for me."

A sigh shook Silas Whipple's wasted frame, and he died.

End of Project Gutenberg's The Crisis, Volume 7, by Winston Churchill

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