inted to me.

"I spoke of Rome just now. What did Rome remind me of?" He slowly
recovered the lost recollection. "Tell Winterfield," he whispered to
Stella, "what the Nuncio said when he knew that I was going to die. The
great man reckoned up the dignities that might have been mine if I had
lived. From my place here in the Embassy--"

"Let me say it," she gently interposed, "and spare your strength for
better things. From your place in the Embassy you would have mounted a
step higher to the office of Vice-Legate. Those duties wisely performed,
another rise to the Auditorship of the Apostolic Chamber. That office
filled, a last step upward to the highest rank left, the rank of a
Prince of the Church."

"All vanity!" said the dying Romayne. He looked at his wife and his
child. "The true happiness was waiting for me here. And I only know it
now. Too late. Too late."

He laid his head back on the pillow and closed his weary eyes. We
thought he was composing himself to sleep. Stella tried to relieve him
of the boy. "No," he whispered; "I am only resting my eyes to look at
him again." We waited. The child stared at me, in infantine curiosity.
His mother knelt at his side, and whispered in his ear. A bright smile
irradiated his face; his clear brown eyes sparkled; he repeated the
forgotten lesson of the bygone time, and called me once more, "Uncle
Ber'."

Romayne heard it. His heavy eyelids opened again. "No," he said. "Not
uncle. Something better and dearer. Stella, give me your hand."

Still kneeling, she obeyed him. He slowly raised himself on the chair.
"Take her hand," he said to me. I too knelt. Her hand lay cold in mine.
After a long interval he spoke to me. "Bernard Winterfield," he said,
"love them, and help them, when I am gone." He laid his weak hand on our
hands, clasped together. "May God protect you! may God bless you!" he
murmured. "Kiss me, Stella."

I remember no more. As a man, I ought to have set a better example; I
ought to have preserved my self-control. It was not to be done. I turned
away from them--and burst out crying.

The minutes passed. Many minutes or few minutes, I don't know which.

A soft knock at the door aroused me. I dashed away the useless tears.
Stella had retired to the further end of the room. She was sitting by
the fireside, with the child in her arms. I withdrew to the same part of
the room, keeping far enough away not to disturb them.

Two strangers came in and placed thems