“Ah!”
“So I’m too late, and it’s my fault. I should have come several days earlier, but couldn’t get away. Besides, I supposed he was in the best of health and there was no hurry.”
“That was Mackenzie’s secret and mine. We expected a quick ending, but its sudden arrival astonished me, at least, in spite of my knowledge of his condition.”
“Then he has been failing for some time?”
“For about a year. He came to me when he experienced the first symptoms, and told me how he felt. I kept from him the knowledge of his condition as long as I thought it wise. But he grew so rapidly and alarmingly worse, I was forced, a few months ago, to lay bare to him his precarious state of ill-health. He heard his doom like the brave Christian he was.”
“Then death did not find him unprepared?”
“No; certainly not.”
“How long did you know him?”
“A little over two years—ever since he came to Elmwood!”
“Where did he live before he moved to this place?”