But as they left the car, he said, "All that you would ask from a brother, please ask from me."
She put her hand in his, and said, "I now ask your support, sympathy, and prayer, for I feel that I shall need all here."
Still retaining her hand, he placed it on his arm and guided her most carefully around the hot ruins and heaps of rubbish till they came to where the Art Building had stood. The moon shone brightly down, lighting up with weird and ghostly effect the few walls remaining. They were utterly alone in the midst of a desolation sevenfold more impressing than that of the desert. Pointing to the spot where, in the midst of his treasures of art and idolized worldly possessions, Mr. Ludolph had perished, she said, in a thrilling whisper, "My father's ashes are there."
"Yes."
Her breath came quick and short, and her face was so pale and agonized that he trembled for her, but he tightened his grasp on her hand, and his tears fell with hers.
"Oh, my father!" she cried, in a tone of unspeakable pathos, "can I never, never see you again? Can I never tell you of the love of Jesus, and the better and happier life beyond? Oh, how my heart yearns after you! God forgive me if this is wrong, but I cannot help it!"
"It is not wrong," said Dennis, brokenly. "Our Lord himself wept over those He could not save."
"It is all that I can do," she murmured, and, leaning her head on his shoulder, a tempest of sobs shook her person.
He supported her tenderly, and said, in accents of the deepest sympathy, "Let every tear fall that will: they will do you good." At last, as she became calmer, he added, "Remember that your great Elder Brother has called the heavy laden to Him for rest."
At last she raised her head, turned, and gave one long parting look, and, as Dennis saw her face in the white moonlight, it was the face of a pitying angel. A low "Farewell!" trembled from her lips, she leaned heavily on his arm, they turned away, and seemingly the curtain fell between father and child to rise no more.