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pillows and rattling the bottles on the table. "On my return, he asked me how she was, and I answered, half in a dream, 'Oh, bonny, she's trying to read a little,' and he raised himself on his elbow and called out to her, and for answer there came back silence--not the silence that _is_ silence, but the silence that is as a voice. I do not know if you understand what I mean by that. If you had lived among the dead as long as I have, you would know. "I darted to the door and pretended to look in. 'She's fallen asleep,' I whispered, closing it; and he said nothing, but his eyes looked queerly at me. "That night, Jeanie and I stood in the hall talking. He had fallen to sleep early, and I had locked the door between the two rooms, and put the key in my pocket, and had stolen down to tell her what had happened, and to consult with her. "'What can we do! God help us, what can we do!' was all that Jeanie could say. We had thought that in a day or two he would be stronger, and that the truth might be broken to him. But instead of that he had grown so weak, that to excite his suspicions now by moving him or her would be to kill him. "We stood looking blankly in each other's faces, wondering how the problem could be solved; and while we did so the problem solved itself. "The one woman-servant had

gone out, and the house was very silent--so silent that I could hear the ticking of Jeanie's watch inside her dress. Suddenly, into the stillness there came a sound. It was not a cry. It came from no human voice. I have heard the voice of human pain till I know its every note, and have grown careless to it; but I have prayed God on my knees that I may never hear that sound again, for it was the sob of a soul. "It wailed through the quiet house and passed away, and neither of us stirred. "At length, with the

return of the blood to our veins, we went upstairs together. He had crept from his own room along the passage into hers. He had not had strength enough to pull the sheet off, though he had tried. He lay across the bed with one hand grasping hers." * * * * * My nurse sat for a while without speaking, a somewhat unusual thing for her to do. "You ought to write your experiences," I said. "Ah!" she said, giving the fire a contemplative poke, "if you'd seen as much sorrow in the world as I have, you wouldn't want to write a sad book." "I think," she added,

after a long pause, with the poker still in her hand, "it can only be the people who have never _known_ suffering who can care to read of it. If I could write a book, I should write a merry book--a book that would make people laugh."

CHAPTER IX

ГЛАВА IX