“Of what, my boy?” said Alwyn, pressing the clinging fingers tenderly.
“Of Death,” whispered Edgar; “when I must let you go.”
He listened dutifully to Mr Murray, and without any mental dissent, but his words did not seem to make much impression. In fact, it was difficult to know what to say to him; for the difficulty was hardly in a region where words could reach.
“If I am afraid I’ll face it,” he said once.
But at last the intense conviction that had been sent into Alwyn’s soul, and which had power to change his whole self—how, it was hard to say—by words or looks or tender hand-clasp, slid also into Edgar’s heart. Alwyn never thought himself that it was anything that he said or did that brought peace to Edgar at last.
But there came a morning bright and blue, when the ash trees were touched with gold, and the smooth turf was thick with dew, and the clear autumn air blew through the open window—when Edgar lay in his brother’s arms with the life ebbing fast away from him.
Then he opened his eyes once more and looked up into Alwyn’s face:
“I don’t care, Val,” he said, “for He careth for me.”
Those were his last conscious words, and with the daylight that he loved on his face, and, by great mercy, the day spring in his heart, Edgar Cunningham died.
Late on that same afternoon Alwyn was sitting alone on the terrace. He was very tired with the long strain of watching, and so sad at heart that he could scarcely turn with comfort to the thought of the love and the life that awaited him in future; he could only feel the want of the hand that had clung to his so constantly, could only think of the pitifulness of Edgar’s story.