ly I was struck somewhere in the chest by some
rough, large missile, fired, I thought, from a gun, though I heard no
explosion; it pierced my ribs, and buried itself, I felt, in some vital
part. I stumbled to a couch and fell upon it; some one came to raise
me, and I was aware that other persons ran hither and thither seeking,
I thought, for medical aid and remedies. I knew within myself that my
last hour had come; I was not in pain, but life and strength ebbed from
me by swift degrees. I felt an intolerable sense of indignity in my
helplessness, and an intense desire to be left alone that I might die
in peace; death came fast upon me with clouded brain and fluttering
breath. . . .

SIBTHORPE VICARAGE, WELLS,
Jan. 7, 1905.

DEAR NELLIE,--I have just opened your letter, and you will know how my
whole heart goes out to you. I cannot understand it, I cannot realise
it; and I would give anything to be able to say a word that should
bring you any comfort or help. God keep and sustain you, as I know He
CAN sustain in these dark hours. I cannot write more to-day; but I send
you the letter that I was writing, when your own letter came. It helps
me even now to think that my dear Herbert told me himself--for that, I
see, was the purpose of my dim dream--what was befalling him. And I am
as sure as I can be of anything that he is with us, with you, still.
Dear friend, if I could only be with you now; but you will know that my
thoughts and prayers are with you every moment.--Ever your affectionate,

T. B.

[I add an extract from my Diary.--T. B.]

Diary, Jan. 15.--A week ago, while I was writing the above unfinished
lines, I received a letter to say that my friend Herbert was dead--he
to whom these letters have been written. It seems that he had been
getting, to all appearances, better; that he had had no renewed
threatenings of the complaint that had made him an exile. But, rising
from his chair in the course of the evening, he had cried out faintly;
put his hand to his breast; fallen back in his chair unconscious, and,
in a few minutes, had ceased to breathe. They say it was a sudden
heart-failure.

It is as though we had been watching by a burrow with all precaution
that some little hunted creature should not escape, and that, while we
watched and devised, it had slipped off by some other outlet the very
existence of which we had not suspected.

Of course, as far as he himself is concerned, such a death is