e coverings over his feet. The night wore on.
After a long silence, he looked up once more and said to Tom:

"I promised Hazeldine a sovereign toward the fund for--" he broke off
with a look of intense weariness, adding after an interval "He'll tell
you. See that it's paid."

The storm had passed, and the golden-red dawn was just breaking when
once more the silence was broken.

"Come nearer, Eric," he whispered "nearer!"

Then came a long pause.

There was stillness that fearful stillness when the watchers begin to
hush their very breath, that they may catch the last faint breathings.
Poor Tom could stand it no longer; he just buried his face in his hands
and sobbed. Perhaps Erica envied him. Violent grief would surely have
been more endurable than this terrible sinking, this dread of not
keeping up to the end. Was she falling with him down those horrible
steps? Was she sinking with him beneath the cold, green waves? Oh, death
cruel death! Why had he not taken them together on that summer day?

Yet what was she saying? The death angel was but God's messenger, and
her father could never, never be beyond the care of One who loved him
infinitely eternally. If He the Father were taking him from her, why,
she would trust Him, though it should crush her whole world.

"Nearer, Eric nearer." How those last words rang in her ears as she
waited there with her hands in his. She knew they would be the last for
he was sinking away into a dreamily passive state just dying because too
tired to live.

"Nearer, nearer!" Was this agony indeed to heal the terrible division
between them? Ah, mystery of evil, mystery of pain, mystery of death!
Only the love of the Infinitely Loving can fathom you only the trust in
that Love give us a glimpse of your meaning.

She felt a tightening of the fingers that clasped hers. He was still
conscious; he smiled just such a smile as he used to give her when, as a
little thing, she had fretted about his leaving home.

She pressed her quivering lips to his, clung to him, and kissed him
again and again. There was a sigh. A long interval, and another sigh.
After that, silence.

CHAPTER XLI. Results Closely Following

But that one man should die ignorant who had capacity for
knowledge, this I call a tragedy. Carlyle

Not what I think, but what Thou art, makes sure. George MacDonald

A wave of strangely varied feeling swept through the country in the next
four-and-twenty hours.