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CHAPTER XIX.

The hour of woe and separation,
The hour of falling tears is this,
Him that so lately was among us,
For the last time of all we kiss.

Up to the grave to be surrendered,
Sealed with the monumental stone,
A dweller in the house of darkness,
Amidst the dead to lie alone.

NEALE. (Translated).

In the middle of the night the wind arose, coming from its home in the far North, where great whales plunge icily through Polar seas, and green icebergs raise their sharp peaks towards the shuddering sky, and screamed with harsh, cutting violence round the strong old Castle, driving the snow-flakes hither and thither in bewildering mazy dance, disturbing the sleepers, and filling them with vague alarms. Sound and silence are alike awfully suggestive to the light slumbers and overstrained nerves of dwellers in a house of sickness. Who has not known them? the sudden wakings, the starts of dismay, the mysterious panics that assail the heart when the King of Terrors is awaited! But when he tarries long, and the straining ear, hour after hour, can catch no coming sound of chariot wheels from the distant hills, the soul becomes, as it were, naturalized to an attitude of expectation, and it seems impossible that

an end shall ever come to the long recurring round of hope and fear, rally and relapse. And so it was that when, with the first cold dawn of Christmas morning, the tidings roused the household that the Dark Angel had come at last, a general sense of consternation prevailed; the long-expected hour took them by surprise. Hastily they huddled on their clothes in the dim half-light, and the children with overawed faces clung silently to Lettice as she entered their brother's room. No more rallyings now, no more suspense, no more struggles of hope against despair, no more care, or sympathy, or warmth, or pain of life. He lay propped on his pillows, struggling in the fetters of mortality. A sorrowing group stood round, their gaze concentrated on his face, but in his eyes there was a strange unconsciousness of them and of their anguish; among them all he was alone. Already he seemed to belong to them no more, called forth from the number of the Living to dwell among the Dead. Sir Kenelm stood by the bed, and his face wore a look unwonted and awful to his children's appealing eyes. He was steeling his soul to face that which must be faced, nerving himself to see his first-born die, and his lips were pale and stern. The servants stood by with tearful faces, listening to the laboured rattling breathing, but they drew back that the young children might gather together at their dying brother's side. He could no

longer speak, but turned his eyes upon them in dumb anguish, as though asking for the help they could not give. For some moments it seemed that none would dare to break the dreadful silence, but at last Parsons, noting the staring eyes of the poor frightened children, whispered them to kiss their brother and go away.

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"Let them stay," said Sir Kenelm, hoarsely. "No one shall desert him now." Parsons dared say no more, although his judgment was strongly against exposing such young children to the ordeal of assisting at the last agony, and again they all stood round speechless and inactive, no holy words sounding in the room to lift sinking hearts above material death and ruin. Mrs. Weedon, as she supported the dying boy in her arms, and wiped the death-sweat from his brow, at last broke the spell, and bade Parsons "set the door open, that the soul might pass more easily."

Then Mr. Daubeny entered hurriedly. He had been soundly sleeping towards the dawn, and had felt no consciousness of the Angel's noiseless tread, as, over the snowclad earth, he drew near to still the beating heart in his cold, strong grasp. Awakened by Miss Oliver, the chaplain had dressed in haste, and now, as he came in, a long-drawn sigh of relief passed round the fearful group; they were glad to see a clergyman among them. One glance at the face upon the bed

was enough for Daubeny; the change had come, that mysterious change defying definition, the Seal of God upon Life's finished book, the dashing of the first cold spray from the Eternal Ocean. He bent over the dying, and spoke a few words in the halfdulled ear. A look of intense solemnity came into Ralph's eyes. He made a sign of acquiescence, and almost immediately his breathing grew quieter, and he lay gazing gravely on the mourners round his bed.

"Make ready!" said the clergyman, turning to the servants. "Let us send him forth into the Dark Valley strengthened by Christ's Last Sacrament.'

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The preparations were quickly made. Ralph's cross, his mother's gift, which had lain by his side all through his illness, was placed before him; the solemn tapers were lighted to cheer the eyes now darkening fast, and all together, for the last time in this world, the father and his children received the Heavenly Food. "Still, sacred hour, peace in the midst of pain!" when, as the curtain lifts to receive the departing spirit into the Holy of Holies, the watchers in the Temple's Outer Court catch, as it were, an echo of the mighty harmonies of adoration from soul-lips within the Veil! And could it be that from the Heavenly Cloister, where she prayed for them, their mother's spirit had come forth to meet her beloved ones on the dim borderland on which

they trod? Well might she be there, with "nameless offices of love," to soothe her fainting child, to take him from his father's arms, to bind up his weary feet, bleeding from the sharp thorns of life, and lead him to the Still Pastures of Everlasting Peace.

When the last rites were ended, Daubeny still prayed softly. Ralph looked from one to another of the kneeling group, with a smile of ineffable sweetness and farewell. Suddenly a terrible struggle began-he threw up his hands and fought for breath. His weakness was so great that it seemed impossible the deadly conflict with the Mighty Unseen Foe should long continue. Yet moment after moment it was protracted, and every moment seemed an hour of concentrated torture to those who loved and were powerless to help him.

"Oh, Daubeny! this is more than I can bear," said Sir Kenelm, in a choking voice. "Pray, pray, that he may die!

"Go to him," whispered Daubeny, "you will endure it better if you are touching him."

Sir Kenelm stooped and lifted once more in his arms the convulsed boyish frame. It may be that the struggle had exhausted itself, or that his father's touch soothed him, as the touch of those we love alone can soothe, but the spasms gradually grew less, and Ralph leaned against his father's shoulder, panting and spent.

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