Towards evening Reginald came to take Ann away. Suddenly life seemed to come back to the dying man. He sat up; they put pillows behind him. He looked around him, and seeing Ann and Reginald, beckoned them to come to him. Laying his hands on their heads, he blessed them.
"I have one desire," he said. "I have loved lands, and wealth, and all the good things of this world; now I know they are of no value at all. I charge you two to discover if there be any child, kith or kin, of those who possessed Newbolt Manor before it came into my hands. If so, give it back to them; if not, then do as the disciples of old--succour the poor, make a home for the destitute, let the wealth go back to God who gave it. You will remember?"
"I will remember, Father," said Reginald; "have no fear."
Colonel Newbolt sank back on his pillows as if content, and quietly, without an effort, as if he were falling asleep, passed away.
His wife rose from her knees and covered his face. At a sign from her all those present left the cell, except her children. They remained with her until the last offices for the dead had been accomplished, then, at her command, hand in hand they went forth; she remaining alone to keep watch beside him who had been her husband.
CHAPTER XII
A Faithful Friend
In the life of every one of us, from the cradle to the grave, there are landmarks. The child's first tooth, its first step as it half tumbles across the floor into its mother's arms, the first word from the baby's lips, are stages in the child's life and in the mother's heart. So it goes on imperceptibly--the child, the youth, the man, school and college; these come to all. But there are waves which sweep over each individual soul, casting it ashore; a master wave, drawing us into the great sea of destiny.
The death of Colonel Newbolt changed the current of more lives than one. Ann had adored her father, and when Reginald took her forth out of that prison-house where he lay dead, she was as one stunned. How great the change in her life was to be she did not then conceive, for in the first hour of a great sorrow, that sorrow alone holds us.
Ann went back to Somerset House, and Patience and Agnes tried to comfort her; but on the morrow Reginald fetched her, and she went home to her mother.