as the sunshine was fast vanishing, Canaris came in wearing such an expression of despair, that Helwyze recoiled, leaving half-uttered a playful inquiry about "the little son."

I have no son."

"Dead?"

I have murdered both."

"Dead.
"But Gladys?"

"Dying; she asks for you, come!" No need of that hoarse command: Helwyze was gone at the first word, swiftly through room and hall, up the stairs he had not mounted for months, straight to that chamber-door. There a hand clutched his shoulder, a breathless voice said, “Here I am first;" and Canaris passed in before him, motioning away a group of tearful women as he went.

Helwyze lingered, pale and panting, till they were gone; then he looked and listened, as if turned to stone, for in the heart of the hush lay Gladys, talking softly to the dead baby on her arm. Not mourning over it, but yearning

with maternal haste to follow and cherish the creature of her love.

"Only a day old; so young to go away alone. Even in heaven you will want your mother, darling, and she will come. Sleep, my baby, I will be with you when you wake."

A stifled sound of anguish recalled the happy soul, already half-way home, and Gladys turned her quiet eyes to her husband bending over her. "Dear, will he come?" she whispered.

"He is here."

He was; and, standing on either side the bed, the two men seemed unconscious of each other, intent only upon her. Feebly she drew the white cover over the little cold thing in her bosom, as if too sacred for any eyes but hers to see, then lifted up her hand with a beseeching glance from one haggard face to the other. They understood; each gave the hand she asked, and, holding them together with the last effort of failing strength, she said, clear and low,

Forgive each other for my sake."

Neither spoke, having no words, but by a mute gesture answered as she wished. Something brighter than a smile rested on her face, and, as if satisfied, she turned again to Canaris, seeming to forget all else in the tender farewell she gave him.

"Remember, love, remember we shall be waiting for you! The new home will not be home to us until you come."

As her detaining touch was lifted, the two hands fell apart, never to meet again. Canaris

knelt down to lay his head beside hers on the pillow, to catch the last accents of the beloved voice, sweet even now. Helwyze, forgotten by them both, drew back into the shadow of the deep red curtains, still studying with an awful curiosity the great mystery of death, asking, even while his heart grew cold within him, –

"Will the faith she trusted sustain her now?"

It did; for, leaning on the bosom of Infinite Love, like a confiding child in its father's arms, without a doubt or fear to mar her peace, a murmur or lament to make the parting harder, Gladys went to her own place.

XVIII.

"FOR in that sleep of death, what dreams may come. Is this one?" was the vague feeling, rather than thought, of which Helwyze was dimly conscious, as he lay in what seemed a grave, so cold, so dead he felt; so powerless. and pent, in what he fancied was his coffin. He remembered the slow rising of a tide of helplessness which chilled his blood and benumbed his brain, till the last idea to be distinguished was, "I am dying: shall I meet Gladys?" then came oblivion, and now, what was this?

Something was alive still something which strove to see, move, speak, yet could not, till the mist, which obscured every sense, should clear away. A murmur was in the air, growing clearer every instant, as it rose and fell, like the muffled sound of waves upon a distant shore. Presently he recognized human voices, and the words they uttered,-words which had no meaning, till, like an electric shock, intelligence returned, bringing with it a great fear.

Olivia was mourning over him, and he felt her tears upon his face; but it was not this which stung him to sudden life, it was another voice, saying, low, but with a terrible distinctness,

"There is no hope. He may remain so for some years; but sooner or later the brain will share the paralysis of the body, and leave our poor friend in a state I grieve to think of."

"No!" burst from Helwyze, with an effort which seemed to dispel the trance which held his faculties. Stir he could not, but speak he did, and opened wide the eyes which had been closed for hours. With the unutterable relief of one roused from a nightmare he recognized his own room, Olivia's tender face bent over him, and his physician holding a hand that had no feeling in it.

with a feeble

"Not dead yet;" he muttered, sort of exultation, adding, with as feeble a despair and doubt, "but she is. Did I dream that?"

"Alas, no!" and Olivia wiped away her own tears from the forehead which began to work with the rush of returning memory and thought.

"What does this numbness mean? Why are you here?" he asked, as his eye went from one face to the other.