be. But I hope yes, I still hope."

On that crumb of comfort she lived, but it was a weary day, and for
the first time she noticed that her father, who was free from fever,
followed her everywhere with his eyes. She knew intuitively that he
thought himself dying.

Toward evening she was sitting beside him, slowly drawing her fingers
through his thick masses of snow-white hair in the way he liked best,
when he looked suddenly right into her eyes with his own strangely
similar ones, deep, earnest eyes, full now of a sort of dumb yearning.

"Little son Eric," he said, faintly, "you will go on with the work I am
leaving."

"Yes, father," she replied firmly, though her heart felt as if it would
break.

"A harmful delusion," he murmured, half to himself, "taking up our best
men! Swallowing up the money of the people. What's that singing, Erica?"

"It is the children in the hospital," she replied. "I'll shut the window
if they disturb you, father."

"No," he said. "One can tolerate the delusion for them if it makes their
pain more bearable. Poor bairns! Poor bairns! Pain is an odd mystery."

He drew down her hand and held it in his, seeming to listen to the
singing, which floated in clearly through the open window at right
angles with the back windows of the hospital. Neither of them knew what
the hymn was, but the refrain which came after every verse as if even
the tinies were joining in it was quite audible to Luke Raeburn and his
daughter.

"Through life's long day, and death's dark night, Oh, gentle Jesus, be
our light."

Erica's breath came in gasps. To be reminded then that life was long and
that death was dark!

She thought she had never prayed, she had never consciously prayed, but
her whole life for the past three years had been an unspoken prayer.
Never was there a more true desire entirely unexpressed than the desire
which now seemed to possess her whole being. The darkness would soon
hide forever the being she most loved. Oh, if she could but honestly
think that He who called Himself the Light of the world was indeed still
living, still ready to help!

But to allow her distress to gain the mastery over her would certainly
disturb and grieve her father. With a great effort she stifled the sobs
which would rise in her throat, and waited in rigid stillness. When the
last notes of the hymn had died away into silence, she turned to look at
her father. He had fallen asleep.

CHAPTER XVIII. Answered