“Oh, I am so sorry for you!”
A faint, tremulous smile illumined his features, and he groped for her hand.
She let him have it, and he pressed it feebly, whispering:
“You are not angry now?”
“No,” she answered solemnly, out of the depths of her pity. “Do we not forgive everything to the dying?”
And surely he looked like a dying man, under the light of the flickering lamp.
“Bless you!” he murmured, in that faint voice, and added: “You will stay with me to the end?”
It was the same petition Mrs. Fleming had offered, and she started and trembled with the same alarm.
The end! What would it be?
The widow had frankly hinted that he had a slight chance for continued life.