there was nothing to fear, and I believed you,—­I thought you were so wise, but it was easy to believe you then with your arms folded close about me and the sunlight streaming through the windows and the shouts of the children outside, but now you cannot go with me and I am afraid to go alone.”  The eyes, wild and despairing, burned fiercely in the pallid cheeks.  “Do you hear, Reginald?  I am afraid, I tell you; horribly afraid!  You used to say you would lay down your life to save me.  Why do you not help me now?

“What makes you look so strangely, if it is all nonsense, Reginald? why do you shut out all the sunshine and why is the house so still?  You told me once you were going to die with a laugh on your lips.  I am dying, Reginald, why don’t you help your wife to die as you mean to do?  A——­h!”

Her voice died away in a low wail of terror and the delicate blue veins in her temples throbbed with feverish excitement.  Reginald Hawthorne had crouched down in his chair and buried his face in his hands.  The pitiful cry began again.

“To die, when life is so sweet!  To be shut up in a coffin and buried in a cold, dark grave!  You don’t love me, Reginald.  If you did, you would die too—­with a laugh on your lips you know—­then I should have that to cheer me, and we should be together, and I should not be afraid.  But now you look so strangely, Reginald.  Don’t you care for me any more?  Can you let them take me away from this beautiful world and stay in it all by yourself?

“I suppose you will give me a splendid funeral—­you are so generous you know—­but I will not care whether the prison is pine or mahogany if I am to be shut up in it all alone!  And you will have a long procession, with plumes and flowers and show, but you will leave me in the dreary cemetery and you will come back to our home, where we have been so happy together—­so happy, just you and I—­but you see you are a philosopher and I do not know how to die!

“And some day you will forget me—­men do such things they say—­and another woman will be your wife and I will be all alone!”

“Sister!” The abject man in the chair held out his hands in an agony of entreaty, “Come here and help us—­if you can!” and Evadne came swiftly into the room, and, sitting down on the side of the bed, gathered the pitiful little figure to her heart.

“It is not death but life,” she said gently.  “This body is not you.  The home of the soul is more beautiful than, any earthly home can ever be.  It is those who are left behind dear, who mourn, not those who go.”

Elise Hawthorne laid her head on Evadne’s shoulder like a tired child.  “But I am afraid,” she whispered.  “If this is true, and God is holy, I am not fit, you know.”

“Your Father loves you dear, for he sent his Son to die.  The thief on the cross was a sinner, yet Christ took him to Paradise.  The fitness must come from Jesus.  His blood washes whiter than snow.”