rrived at the end of a long
passage, he opened a door, and retired.

As I crossed the threshold Stella met me. She took both my hands in
hers and looked at me in silence. All that was true and good and noble
expressed itself in that look.

The interval passed, and she spoke--very sadly, very quietly.

"One more work of mercy, Bernard. Help him to die with a heart at rest."

She drew back--and I approached him.

He reclined, propped up with pillows, in a large easy-chair; it was
the one position in which he could still breathe with freedom. The ashy
shades of death were on his wasted face. In the eyes alone, as they
slowly turned on me, there still glimmered the waning light of life. One
of his arms hung down over the chair; the other was clasped round his
child, sitting on his knee. The boy looked at me wonderingly, as I stood
by his father. Romayne signed to me to stoop, so that I might hear him.

"Penrose?" he asked, faintly whispering. "Dear Arthur! Not dying, like
me?"

I quieted _that_ anxiety. For a moment there was even the shadow of a
smile on his face, as I told him of the effort that Penrose had vainly
made to be the companion of my journey. He asked me, by another gesture,
to bend my ear to him once more.

"My last grateful blessing to Penrose. And to you. May I not say it? You
have saved Arthur"--his eyes turned toward Stella--"you have been _her_
best friend." He paused to recover his feeble breath; looking round
the large room, without a creature in it but ourselves. Once more the
melancholy shadow of a smile passed over his face--and vanished. I
listened, nearer to him still.

"Christ took a child on His knee. The priests call themselves ministers
of Christ. They have left me, because of _this_ child, here on my knee.
Wrong, wrong, wrong. Winterfield, Death is a great teacher. I know how
I have erred--what I have lost. Wife and child. How poor and barren all
the rest of it looks now!"

He was silent for a while. Was he thinking? No: he seemed to be
listening--and yet there was no sound in the room. Stella, anxiously
watching him, saw the listening expression as I did. Her face showed
anxiety, but no surprise.

"Does it torture you still?" she asked.

"No," he said; "I have never heard it plainly, since I left Rome. It has
grown fainter and fainter from that time. It is not a Voice now. It
is hardly a whisper: my repentance is accepted, my release is
coming.--Where is Winterfield?"

She po