“Dearest!”
“The Lord’s Prayer!”
She began,—his fingers tightened on hers. “Pray it for old Moy,” he said; and as she paused, scarce hearing or understanding, “He—he wants it,” gasped Herbert. “No! One can’t pray it, without—” another pause. “Help me, Jenny. Say it—O Lord, who savedst us—forgive us. Help us to forgive from our hearts that man his trespasses. Amen.”
Jenny said it. Herbert’s voice sank in the Amen. He lay breathing in long gasps; but he thus breathed still when Julius came back, and Jenny told him that a few words had passed, adding—
“Julius, I will say nothing bitter again. God help me not to think it.”
Did Herbert hear? Was that the reason of the calm which made the white wasted face so beautiful, and the strange soft cool hush throughout the room?
CHAPTER XXXIV
Silver Hair
And how should I your true love know
From another man?—Friar of Orders Gray
“Please God, I can try again.”
Those were the words with which Herbert Bowater looked into his Rector’s face on awaking in the evening of that same December day from one of a series of sleeps, each sweeter and longer than the last, and which had borne him over the dreaded hours, without fever, and with strengthening pulse.