"God bless you, Mary!" he said—"You've been a good angel to me! I never quite believed in Heaven, but looking at you I know there is such a place—the place where you were born!"
She smiled—but her eyes were soft with unshed tears.
"You think too well of me, David," she said. "I'm not an angel—I wish I were! I'm only a very poor, ordinary sort of woman."
"Are you?" he said, and smiled—"Well, think so, if it pleases you. Good-night—and again God bless you!"
He patted the tiny head of the small Charlie, whom she held nestling against her breast.
"Good-night, Charlie!"
The little dog licked his hand and looked at him wistfully.
"Don't part with him, Mary!" he said, suddenly—"Let him always have a home with you!"
"Now, David! You really are tired out and over-melancholy! As if I should ever part with him!" And she kissed Charlie's silky head—"We'll all keep together! Good-night, David!"
"Good-night!" he answered. He watched her as she went through the doorway, holding the dog in her arms and turning back to smile at him over her shoulder—anon he listened to her footfall ascending the stairway to her own room—then, to her gentle movements to and fro above his bed—till presently all was silent. Silence—except for the measured plash of the sea, which he heard distinctly echoing up through the coombe from the shore. A great loneliness environed him—touched by a great awe. He felt himself to be a solitary soul in the midst of some vast desert, yet not without the consciousness that a mystic joy, an undreamed-of glory, was drawing near that should make that desert "blossom like the rose." He moved slowly and feebly to the window—against one-half of the latticed pane leaned a bunch of white roses, shining with a soft pearl hue in the light of a lovely moon.