"No—no," he murmured, and his eyes closed gently, his breathing became more gentle still; once more he said, lovingly, "Dear Papa,—Dear Mamma," and then—he slept.
"Don't disturb him, Robert," sobbed Amy to her husband, who was kneeling near.
But Bertie had gone to a sleep from which there was no awaking.
Bertie, little loving Bertie, was dead.
"Softly thou'st sunk to sleep, From trials rude and sore; Now the good Shepherd, with His sheep Shall guard thee evermore."
CHAPTER XIII.
JANE'S STORY.
"An old, old woman cometh forth, when she hears the people cry; Her hair is white as silver, like horn her glazed eye. 'Twas she that nursed him at her breast, that nursed him long ago. She knows not whom they all lament, but soon she well shall know; With one deep shriek she through doth break, when her ear receives their wailing, 'Let me kiss my Celin ere I die—Alas! alas for Celin!'" Lockhart's Spanish Ballads.
The news of the sad death at the park spread like wildfire through the quiet, little village, and soon reached the turnpike gate, where Jane was fast recovering from the fever that had proved so fatal to poor Bertie. She, like Frances, moaned and wept when she heard of it; like her, her heart cowered and shrank within her; and for three days she could scarcely be persuaded to eat or drink, or say a word to anyone. Day after day she lay in her bed with her face steadily turned away from her sister, who as usual, tried to worry her into a more reasonable frame of mind, but finding it useless, left her to herself, and called her sullen; but it was not so, Jane's heart had been touched and softened ever since the unfortunate day of Bertie's visit; he had done more towards bringing repentance to that guilty heart than years of suffering had been able to accomplish; for Jane had suffered, suffered from the weight of a secret, that at times well-nigh made her as crazy as Marks imagined her to be. It was this terrible secret that had made her so silent and strange, this that had driven her neighbours to look upon her as half-witted. But she wanted no one's pity, no one's consolation, had steeled and hardened her heart against it, and let her life pass on and wither in its lone coldness. As she had lived, so she might have died, smothering all remorse, driving back each repentant feeling as it swept past her; might have died—but for Bertie's visit. Since then, the firm will to resist the good had been shaken; she was not only weak from the effects of the fever, but inwardly weak; weak at heart, weak in spirit. She battled with the repentant feelings so foreign to her, fought against what she had been a stranger too for so long, but it was all in vain; she resisted with a will, but it was a feeble will, and in the end the good triumphed, and Jane was won.