t
before, maybe I wouldn't have died. It's been killing me all the time.
Oh, dear! dear! I wish I was dead, if only I was sure I wouldn't go to
the bad place."

Isa now acquainted Lurton briefly with the nature of Mrs. Plausaby's
statement, and Lurton knelt by her bedside and turned it into a very
solemn and penitent confession to God, and very trustfully prayed for
forgiveness, and--call it the contagion of Lurton's own faith, if you
will--at any rate, the dying woman felt a sense of relief that the story
was told, and a sense of trust and more peace than she had ever known in
her life. Lurton had led her feeble feet into a place of rest. And he
found joy in thinking that, though his ministry to rude lumbermen and
hardened convicts might be fruitless, he had at least some gifts that
made him a source of strength and consolation to the weak, the
remorseful, the bereaved, and the dying. He stepped out of the door of
the sick-chamber, and there, right before him, was Plausaby, his smooth
face making a vain endeavor to keep its hold upon itself. But Lurton saw
at once that Plausaby had heard the prayer in which he had framed Mrs.
Plausaby's confession to Isa into a solemn and specific confession to
God. I know no sight more pitiful than that of a man who has worn his
face as a mask, when at last the mask is broken and the agony behind
reveals itself. Lurton had a great deal of presence of mind, and if he
did not think much of the official and priestly authority of a minister,
he had a prophet's sense of his moral authority. He looked calmly and
steadily into the eyes of Plausaby, Esq., and the hollow sham, who had
been unshaken till now, quailed; counterfeit serenity could not hold its
head up and look the real in the face. Had Lurton been abashed or nervous
or self-conscious, Plausaby might have assumed an air of indignation at
the minister's meddling. But Lurton had nothing but a serene sense of
having been divinely aided in the performance of a delicate and difficult
duty. He reached out his hand and greeted Plausaby quietly and
courteously and yet solemnly. Isabel, for her part, perceiving that
Plausaby had overheard, did not care to conceal the indignation she felt.
Poor Plausaby, Esq.! the disguise was torn, and he could no longer hide
himself. He sat down and wiped the perspiration from his forehead, and
essayed to speak, as before, to the minister, of his anxiety about his
poor, dear wife, but he could not do it. E