"God—keep—you!" came in the same hoarse whisper.
Then he turned to the nurse, and with great effort spoke aloud, "Belle, pray!"
David, standing with bowed head, while she knelt with her arm around the frightened boy, listened to such a prayer as he had never heard before. He had wondered one time how this woman could sacrifice everything in life for the sake of a man who died so many centuries ago. But as he listened now, to her low, earnest voice, he felt an unseen Presence in the room, as of the Christ to whom she spoke so confidingly.
As she prayed that the Everlasting Arms might be underneath as this soul went down into the "valley of the shadow," the doctor cried out exultingly, "There is no valley!"
David looked up. The doctor's worn face was shining with an unspeakable happiness. He stretched out his arms.
"Jesus saves me! O, the wonder of it!"
His hands dropped. Gradually his eyes closed, and he relapsed into a stupor, from which he never aroused. When Dr. Mills came at midnight he was still breathing; but the street lights were beginning to fade in the gray, wintry dawn when Belle Carleton reverently laid the lifeless hands across the still heart, and turned to look at Lee.
The child had sobbed himself to sleep on the sofa, and David had gone.
O, the pity of it, that we keep the heart's-ease of our appreciation to wreathe cold coffin-lids, and cover unresponsive clay!