hour of his death. The
first intimation is when the executioner at daybreak enters his cell and
bids him come forth to die, sometimes in less than sixty seconds from
his waking.[2]

How gray he looked, and how infinitely tried. I rose swiftly and took
his hands, which were deadly cold, and led him to the outer room. I
could not say anything, for I did not know how such a terribly sudden
blow would affect him; he was so unlike any one else. Why is it so hard
to comfort the afflicted? Why should the most charitable duty it is ever
given us to perform be, without exception, the hardest of tasks?

I am sure most people feel as I do. It is far less painful to suffer
wounds and sickness in one's own body than to stand by and see the cold
clean knife go through skin and flesh and cartilage; it is surely easier
to suffer disease than to smooth daily and hourly the bed and pillows of
some poor tormented wretch, calling on God and man to end his misery.
There is a hidden instinct--of a low and cowardly kind, but human
nevertheless--which bids us turn away from spectacles of agony whether
harrowing or repulsive, until the good angel comes and whispers that we
must trample on such coarse impulse and do our duty. "Show pity," said
the wise old Frenchman, "do anything to alleviate distress, but avoid
actually feeling either compassion or sympathy. They can lead to no
good." That was only his way of making to himself an excuse for doing a
good action, for Larochefoucauld was a man who really possessed every
virtue that he disclaimed for himself and denied in others.

I felt much of this as I led Isaacs to the outer room, not knowing what
form his sorrow might take, but feeling in my own person a grief as
poignant, perhaps, for the moment, as his own. I had known he would
come, that was all, though I had hoped he would not, and I knew that I
must do my best to send him away a little less sorrowful than he had
come. I was not prepared for the extreme calm of voice and manner that
marked his first words, coming with measured rhythm and even cadence
from his pale lips.

"It is all over, my friend," he said.

"It has but begun," said the solemn tones of Ram Lal, the Buddhist, from
the door. He entered and approached us.

"Friend Isaacs," he continued, "I am not here to mock at your grief or
to weary your strained heartstrings with such petty condolence as
well-nigh drove Ayoub of old to impatience. But I love you, my brother,
and I