Silence falls for a brief space. He is gathering his fainting strength for the words that come slowly from his lips:
"I have been the bearer to you of unwelcome tidings so often, Mrs. Winans, that it absolutely pains me now to recall it."
"Do not recall it," she rejoins, earnestly. "Why should you? The power overruling such things is higher than we are. You have been a comforter to me more often than you know of—take only that thought with you."
He smiles as she re-arranges his pillows, lifting his head so that his faint breath comes more evenly. The stray end of one of her long silken curls falls over his breast an instant, and he touches it with a caressing hand.
"It is given to me," he answers, "to bear you good tidings before I go. Your memories of me—will not thus be all unpleasant ones."
The eager remonstrance forming itself on her lip dies unspoken as he goes on:
"You have borne sorrow with a very brave heart, Gracie—have been, as you once told me, and as I really think, fireproof! Can you bear joy as well?"
She cannot possibly speak. Something rising in her throat literally chokes her breath.
"Little sister, be strong. Lulu has written—well, that your husband—that Winans is in London, alive and well—and is coming home to you—in May."