"Poor Ralph! I am grieved for you, dear!"
"I know you are," taking hold of her hand and kissing it. "It has cost me a struggle to acknowledge that God has led me right. If I had been other than a bankrupt soul He could not have had mercy on me. He was obliged to bring me low. But I thank Him for it. You do forgive me the wrong I did you?" and he looked so wistfully at her.
"Of course I do, a hundred times over," and she stooped to kiss him, her hot tears mingling with his.
"Dear Phebe——" But strength had gone. With one hand clasping Phebe, and the other his boy, and with Nanna gently wiping the cold sweat from his brow, he passed to the other land. His last words were: "Phebe, come with—me!" But he had started on a journey he was obliged this time to take without her.
CHAPTER XXVIII
OLIVE LEAVES AND LAUREL LEAVES
In a very few weeks after Ralph's death the whole affair of his return seemed but as a dream, so much had life resumed its old aspect for all in Phebe's household. But the calm was not to last long; there was first to be two big pieces of excitement, and then, as the young folks say in the old game of "Family Coach," a general "change" round.
One glorious spring evening Jim Coates paid Mrs. Waring an unexpected visit.
"I thought you were at Exton," exclaimed Phebe. She knew that Hugh Black had started work there on a very large scale, and that he had given Jim a good berth.