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'For his soul pleased the Lord: therefore hasted He to take him away from the wicked.'
Certainly there was no bitterness in Audrey's grief when, a few hours later, she stood with Michael beside that still form. How beautiful her Cyril looked! she thought; and even Michael marvelled as he gazed at him. He lay there like a young knight who had fallen in his maiden fight, and who in death was still a conqueror. The living man who stood there could almost have envied him, he was so worn and jaded with the battle of life.
'How peacefully he sleeps!' he said, in a moved voice; 'he looks as though he were dreaming happily, Audrey. Surely it will comfort his mother to see him like this!'
'She will not see him yet; Biddy says she is too ill. We must give her time to recover herself—the blow has been so awfully sudden. Yes, he looks happy; my darling sleeps well. Did you hear what he said, Michael?—that he was glad that he lay there; that it was all as it should be? If ever a man yielded his life willingly, Cyril did!'
'His life was so hard, you see.'
'Yes; but he would have given it all the same if his happiness had been perfect. He would not have stood by and seen even a beggar perish, he was so generous. You would have done it yourself, Michael.'
'I do not know,' he returned with a shudder; 'I would not answer for myself: it was such an awful death!'
'But I can answer for you,' she replied calmly: 'you would have done it if he had not been beforehand.'
And then she moved away from him, and began to arrange the few flowers that the people of the house had sent up to her.