as forever past. He died then;
for, though the heavy breaths still tore their way up for a little
longer, they were but the waves of an ebbing tide that beat unfelt
against the wreck, which an immortal voyager had deserted with a smile.
He never spoke again, but to the end held my hand close, so close that
when he was asleep at last, I could not draw it away. Dan helped me,
warning me as he did so that it was unsafe for dead and living flesh to
lie so long together; but though my hand was strangely cold and stiff,
and four white marks remained across its back, even when warmth and
color had returned elsewhere, I could not but be glad that, through its
touch, the presence of human sympathy, perhaps, had lightened that hard
hour.

When they had made him ready for the grave, John lay in state for half
an hour, a thing which seldom happened in that busy place; but a
universal sentiment of reverence and affection seemed to fill the
hearts of all who had known or heard of him; and when the rumor of his
death went through the house, always astir, many came to see him, and I
felt a tender sort of pride in my lost patient; for he looked a most
heroic figure, lying there stately and still as the statue of some
young knight asleep upon his tomb. The lovely expression which so often
beautifies dead faces, soon replaced the marks of pain, and I longed
for those who loved him best to see him when half an hour's
acquaintance with Death had made them friends. As we stood looking at
him, the ward master handed me a letter, saying it had been forgotten
the night before. It was John's letter, come just an hour too late to
gladden the eyes that had longed and looked for it so eagerly! yet he
had it; for, after I had cut some brown locks for his mother, and taken
off the ring to send her, telling how well the talisman had done its
work, I kissed this good son for her sake, and laid the letter in his
hand, still folded as when I drew my own away, feeling that its place
was there, and making myself happy with the thought, that, even in his
solitary place in the "Government Lot," he would not be without some
token of the love which makes life beautiful and outlives death. Then I
left him, glad to have known so genuine a man, and carrying with me an
enduring memory of the brave Virginia blacksmith, as he lay serenely
waiting for the dawn of that long day which knows no night.

CHAPTER V

OFF DUTY.

"My dear girl, we shall have you sick