There her fortitude had given way a little, and Richard was relieved to see her quiet tears coursing slowly down her cheeks, as they stood side by side looking on the still face with its changeless smile.
'Ethel, I am glad you have allowed me to see him,' he said, at last; 'he looks so calm and peaceful, all marks of age and suffering gone. Who could have the heart to break that rest?'
Then the pent-up pain found utterance.
'Oh, Richard, think, never to have bidden him good-bye!'
'Did you wish him good-night, dear? I thought you told me you always went to his bedside the last thing before you slept?'
'Yes—but I did not know,' the tears flowing still more freely.
'No—you only wished him good-night, and bade God bless him. Well, has He not blessed him?'
A sob was her only reply.
'Has He not given him the "blessing of peace"? Is not His very seal of peace there stamped on that quiet brow? Dear Ethel, those words, "He is not, for God took him," always seem to me to apply so wonderfully to sudden death. You know,' dropping his voice, and coming more closely, 'some men, good men, even, have such a horror of death.'
'He had,' in a tone almost inaudible.