the church--." She
caught no more, and he dozed off again into silence. After watching him
a few moments, Esther beckoned to Catherine to take her chair, and
slipped out of the room. She wanted to see Hazard, for, strange as it
seemed to her, he had become her most intimate friend, and she could not
send him away at such a moment.

She found him at the foot of the stairs, and there they remained
standing for a few moments, talking in low tones, by the light of a dim
gas-burner.

"I want to help you," he said. "I am used to such scenes and you are
not. You need help though you may not ask for it."

She shook her head: "I am a miserable coward," she said; "but we are
beyond help now, and I must learn endurance."

"You will over-tax your strength," he urged. "Remember, there is no
excitement so great as to stand for the first time in face of eternity,
as you are doing."

"I suppose it must be so," she answered. "Every thing seems unreal. I
can't even realize my father's illness. Your voice sounds far-off, as
though you were calling to me out of the distance and darkness. I hardly
know what we are saying, or why we are here. I never felt so before."

"It is over-excitement and fatigue," he replied soothingly. "Do you
feel afraid, too?"

"Terribly!" she answered; "I want to run away. But I think death excites
almost more than it frightens. My father laughs at it even now."

"I am more concerned about you," continued Hazard. "I can do nothing for
him, and you may feel sure that for him all the worst is over. Will you
let me stay here on the chance of your needing help?"

"I have already sent away my aunt and George Strong," she said. "Do not
feel alarmed about me. Women have more strength than men."

As he left the house, he thought to himself that this woman at least had
more strength than most men. He could not forget her pale face, or her
dreamy voice and far-off eyes as she had told him her feelings. Most
women would have asked him for religious help and consolation. She had
gently put his offers aside. She seemed to him like a wandering soul,
lost in infinite space, but still floating on, with her quiet air of
confidence as though she were a part of nature itself, and felt that all
nature moved with her.

"I almost think," said Hazard to himself, "that she could give a lesson
in strength to me. It seems rather unnecessary, my offering to give one
to her."

Yet Esther felt little like giving strength to any