to go, when you shall say the
time is come."

She spoke very quietly, not at all as if it cost her anything to say it.
Indeed, in a sense, it did not. She was willing now to go.

The doctor looked at her gravely.

"Are you able--quite able? I do not think he will need you for a very
long time. I am glad you are willing to go, though I never would have
urged you to do so, or have blamed you if you had refused."

In his heart he doubted whether the journey could ever be taken. Days
passed and little change appeared. The sick man was conscious when he
was spoken to, and answered clearly enough the questions that were put
to him by the doctors; but he had either given up, or had forgotten his
determination to get home to die. Allison stayed in the place by night
as well as by day, and while she rested close at hand, Robert Hume or
the faithful Dickson took the watch. She would not leave him. He might
rouse himself and ask for her, and she would not fail him at the last.
She did not fail him. For one morning as she stood looking down upon
him, when the others had gone away, he opened his eyes and spoke her
name. She stooped to catch his words.

"Is it all forgiven?" he said faintly.

"All forgiven!" she answered, and yielding to a sudden impulse, she bent
her head and touched her lips to his.

A strange brightness passed over the dying face.

"Forgiven!" he breathed. It was his last word.

He lingered still a few days more. Long, silent days, in which there
was little to be done but to wait for the end. Through them all,
Allison sat beside the bed, slumbering now and then, when some one came
to share her watch, but ready at the faintest moan or movement of the
dying man, with voice or touch, to soothe or satisfy him. Her strength
and courage held out till her hand was laid on the closed eyes, and then
she went home to rest.

CHAPTER TWENTY NINE.

"Choosing to walk in the shadow,
Patient and not afraid."

Allison had need of rest, greater need than she knew. The first days
after her long watch and service came to an end were passed in utter
quiet. No one came to disturb her, either with question or counsel.
Mr Rainy, of course, took the management of affairs into his hands; and
if he could have had his own way, everything which was to be done, and
the manner of doing it, would have been submitted to her for direction
or approval. It would, to him, have seemed right that she should go a