It was very early, only a little after six, and the sun had risen on a day exquisite, warm, and windless. In Martin’s room the big window had been open all night, and all night the blind had not once rattled or stirred, while the lamp on the table near it burned steady without a flicker. But though it had been light for nearly an hour, the nurse had only this moment put out the lamp, for she had been alert, quick, and watchful, unable to leave his bedside for a moment for the last four hours.

He had been very restless, attempting again and again to sit up in bed, and it had needed not only all her care but all her strength to keep him lying down. All night long, too, that terrible uncontrollable twitching of the muscles of leg and arm had gone on incessantly, and again and again, for ten minutes or more at a stretch, she had kept one arm with steady pressure over those poor, jumping knees, while she held the other ready to prevent his getting up. It had been all she could do, in fact, to manage him alone, but she had been unwilling, except at the last extremity, to rouse Nurse James from the next room, for she had had a terribly tiring day yesterday with him. Yesterday, too, a second doctor had come down from London. The case was extremely grave, but all that could be done was being done.

Martin was lying rather more quiet just now, and Nurse Baker had moved from the bed to put out the lamp and draw the blind up a little. His eyes were wide open, staring at the ceiling, and he was talking in a high, meaningless drone.

“No, Karl, I can’t do it” he was saying. “I don’t see it like that. I know I shall break down, because I haven’t the slightest idea of how it begins, and I can’t leave out the beginning. And father is angry with me, and when he is angry he frightens me. Hasn’t Stella come to see me? I had such a headache, you know; like a great piece of hot iron, you know, right inside my head. They took off the top of my head to put it there. I’m frightened of him when he’s like that. Where’s Stella? No; Lady Sunningdale was in the bird of para—para—parachute—I don’t know, in that hat anyhow, you fool with Sahara. That’s what made it so hot, and I can’t endure English chants. Oh, father, don’t, don’t. It isn’t my fault.”

His voice rose to a scream, and the nurse came quickly back to the bedside, just in time to prevent him rising.

The door opened gently, and Helen came in in her dressing-gown. And the terrible drone began again.

“And when we’re married, Helen and Frank shall come and stay with us, and I’ll play to them, if it gets cooler. But father mustn’t know; he mustn’t come. Karl is the loud pedal you see, and the music-stool, and I’m only the black notes. I hope they won’t play me much, as I’m all out of tune with the iron. And all those faces are there, a sea of them, and I’m all alone. If I break down father will be angry!”

He turned his head sideways on the pillow, closed his eyes, and was silent for a little. Helen, with quivering lip, was looking at that dear face, so thin and hollow, so untidy and unshaven, with unspeakable love and longing. Then the nurse left the bed and came to her. Helen did not ask if he was better.

“Can I help you in anything?” she said.

“No, dear Miss Helen, thank you. I think he will be quieter for a little now. But I should like Dr. Thaxter to be sent for at once, please. Yes, he is very ill. He is as ill as he can be. There, there, my dear!”

Helen clasped her hands together a moment, holding them out towards Martin with a dumb, beseeching gesture, as if imploring him.

“And I am so strong,” she said. “Why can’t I give him some of my strength! It is cruel.”

“Ah, if one only could do that,” said Nurse Baker. “But he is not suffering; he is quite unconscious.”

“May my father come in to see him a moment?” asked the girl.

“No; much better not. He does not know what he is saying, but he keeps on saying what you have heard. Now, will you send somebody for the doctor? There are certain things I don’t like about his looks. And then come back, dear, if you like. He never says a word his sister should not hear.”

Helen advanced to the side of the bed a moment, and just touched Martin’s hand, which lay outside the bedclothes. She could not speak, but just nodded to the nurse and went away.

She sent word to the stables that the cart was to go at once to fetch Dr. Thaxter, and then went to her father’s study, where he was waiting for her.

He was kneeling by his table, as he had knelt for the last half-hour, but rose when she entered, and they stood together, hands clasped, a moment.

“No, dear father, he is no better,” she said. “He—he is very ill, indeed. And Nurse Baker thinks you had better not go in.”

Mr. Challoner looked at her with that dreadful dry-eyed despair that she had seen on his face so often during this last week.

“Does he still talk about me?” he asked.

Helen laid her hands on his shoulders.

“Yes, father,” she said; “but he does not know what he is saying. Indeed, he does not. He talks all sorts of nonsense. He has no idea what he says.”

“Ah, Helen, that is just it,” he moaned. “The poor lad speaks instinctively; he says what has become a habit of thought. Oh, my God, my God!”

Helen knew her impotence to help him.

“I have sent for Dr. Thaxter,” she said. “Nurse Baker wanted him to come at once. And, father, there is another thing, which I have only just thought of. If Dr. Thaxter thinks—if he thinks that, we ought to send for a Roman priest.”

Mr. Challoner’s face changed suddenly.

“No,” he said, in a harsh whisper; “no Roman priest shall enter the house.”

“Ah, but he must, he must,” said Helen. “Think a moment. If Martin was conscious, you know he would wish it, and you would send for one.”

Mr. Challoner did not reply for a moment; then he lifted his hands with a helpless gesture.

“And it is Easter morning,” he said.

Somehow that cut at the girl’s heart more than anything.

“Yes, dear father,” she said at length; “and is not that—whatever happens—enough for us all? Whoever we are, Frank, Martin, you, I, that is where we meet.”

Then for the first time since that day, now nearly a fortnight ago, when Martin had sat down dead tired on the seat by the front door, the blessed relief of tears came to his father, and he wept long, silently, a man’s hard, painful tears. And with those tears the upright hardness of him, the God-fearing, God-loving narrowness went from him. The bitter frosts of his nature melted, they were dissolved.

“Oh, Helen, if he lives,” he said at length.

“Ah, yes, dear father, or if he dies. Even if he dies, dear.”

She took his hands, holding them tightly.

“Oh, help me to remember that,” she whispered; “I shall need all the help you can give me. We shall want—we shall want all the help we can get—both of us. We will give it each other. And Stella——“

“You telegraphed to her?”

“Yes; she cannot get here till to-morrow!”

Then the girl gave way.

“To-morrow,” she said; “and it is only just to-day. Father, father, I can’t bear it. I can’t.”

But the strength she had given him so often during this last week was ready again to help her.

“Yes, dear Helen,” he said, speaking quite calmly again. “We can both bear whatever is to be. God does not send us anything that we are not capable of bearing, and of bearing without bitterness and without complaint. And whether it is life or death with our dear Martin, it is all life. We believe that, do we not? Let us hold on to that, for it sustains the sorrows of all the world. There is nothing so sure as that. It is the Rock of Ages, Helen.”

There was the sound of wheels on the gravel outside.

“That will be the doctor, dear,” said he; “will you go and meet him, and—and the cart must wait if he thinks a priest should be sent for.”

She got up at once.

“Yes, father,” she said.

Helen went out into the hall. Dr. Thaxter had just come in, and at the same moment Nurse Baker hurried downstairs.

“Come up at once, please, doctor,” she said. “He—he came to himself a few minutes ago, after being delirious all night. I took his temperature. It is normal, just about normal.”

Helen’s face suddenly brightened.

“He is better, then?” she said.

Nurse Baker turned to her, as the doctor took off his coat, with infinite compassion in her kind, brown eyes.

“No, dear Miss Helen,” she said. “He is—ah, I need not explain to you. But it is very bad. It is—you must be very brave, my dear. Go to your father.”

She gave her a quick little kiss, and followed the doctor upstairs. Helen went back into the study.

“Something has happened,” she said. “I had no time to speak to Dr. Thaxter. They will send for us, dear. I think—I think that is what nurse meant.”

It was now about seven of the morning, and the sun about an hour above the horizon streamed gloriously into the room. It shone on the table, the sofa, on the big chair where Helen and Martin as little children used to sit together, looking at Bible pictures. And she sat down in that chair now. The big things had been said between her father and her, and as they waited now both turned to little memories of the past.

“Martin used to sit by me,” she said.

“Yes; and then you grew too big. After that you used each to have a chair, one on each side of me.”

“And we did our lessons there,” said Helen. Then she stopped suddenly, for there was a foot on the stairs.

Nurse Baker came in.

“You must both come,” she said.

The blind was drawn up in Martin’s room, and the same wonderful sun flooded the room, and outside many thrushes were singing. There was but little apparatus of medicine there,—it was just a boy’s clean room: cricket bats and racquets stood in one corner, on the table there was a heap of music, school-books were in the bookcase by the door. And on the bed lay Martin. His eyes were still open, but they were blind and unseeing no more, and he turned them wearily to the door when Helen and his father entered. But when he saw them, they brightened a little. The doctor had stood back from the bed, Nurse Baker was by him. Then Martin spoke.

“It is nice to be in my own room again,” he said in a voice just audible. “Oh, good-morning, Helen; good-morning, father. I have had horrible dreams, father. I dreamed you were angry with me. How silly. You are not angry?”

Mr. Challoner came up to the bed, and knelt there, his arm resting on the blanket.

“No, dear lad,” he said. “I am not; indeed, I am not.”

Martin shifted his position a little.

“I’m glad,” he said, “because I’m so tired. Helen, I played well, really well, did I?”

“Yes, Martin; Karl Rusoff said—he said nobody ever played better.”

And she was silent because she could not say any more just then.

“And what is to-day?” asked Martin at length.

“It is Easter Sunday, dear Martin,” said his father.

Martin half raised his head.

“I ought to be at Mass,” he said, “but I can’t. It doesn’t matter, does it, if one can’t?”

His father came a little closer yet.

“No, dear boy,” he said. “It is Mass everywhere this morning. He was crucified, and this morning He rose again. That is all the world holds, and the heaven of heavens.”

“Yes, all,” said the boy. “And to-day——“

The whisper in which he had spoken died, and Dr. Thaxter took a step towards the bed, looked at him a moment, and then went back again.

For a minute or two Martin lay there quite still; then he put out his two hands on each side of the bed, one towards Helen, one to his father.

“I am awfully tired,” he said, “and I can’t talk. But I can listen still. Is Stella here?”

“No, Martin,” said Helen; “but she is coming as quickly as she can.”

“Ah! Father, say something, something that you and I both know and like.”

Mr. Challoner gently kissed the boy’s hand; then he raised his head and spoke.

Helen was on the other side of the bed, and as her father’s voice faltered and stopped, she looked up.

“Shall father and I say it together, Martin?” she asked.

“Yes, together,” said he.

So sometimes one, sometimes the other, sometimes both repeated the beautiful words. But just before the last verse Martin raised his head a little, looking straight in front of him. Then his father began:

He paused, for he saw that look in dying eyes, those eyes that were so dear to him, which means that the great event is there, that the great, white presence has entered. Helen had seen, too.

Then Martin raised himself a little further and spoke no longer in a whisper,—

Then he sank down again, withdrew his hand from his father’s, and put it on the pillow. Then he laid his face on it, as was his custom, and fell asleep.

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PIGS IN CLOVER

BY “FRANK DANBY”

8vo. Decorated cloth, $1.50.

“By far the most powerful and searching piece of fiction of the year.”—The Bookman.

“Has a vigor like that Charles Reade used to show.”—Buffalo Commercial.

“A powerful society and political romance which is still more powerful as a novel of character.”—Brooklyn Eagle.

“The most effective realistic novel of a decade.”—Professor Guy Carleton Lee.

“The book is written with insight, sincerity of purpose, and rugged virility.”—The New York Commercial Advertiser.

“One of the most powerful and sustained stories read in many months.”—Dr. Harry Thurston Peck.

“A novel of unusual power, brilliant, and full of insight into character. It is a book to read.”—Detroit Free Press.

J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY, PHILADELPHIA

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THE ISSUE

By GEORGE MORGAN

With frontispiece and five drawings by GEORGE A. WILLIAMS

12mo. Cloth, $1.50

“By long odds the most striking literary event of the year.”—Philadelphia North American.

“‘The Issue’ is one of the best novels of its period.”—Baltimore Sun.

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“A remarkably clear, just, and at the same time entertaining pen-picture of the most momentous period in American history. A book to make one think. It is one of the most substantial and worthy efforts of the year. The most striking work of its type extant. Here is a novel of American life that is really worth while.”—Philadelphia Record.

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J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY, PHILADELPHIA

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A SEQUENCE IN HEARTS

BY MARY MOSS.

Author of “Fruit Out of Season,” “Julian Meldohla.”

12mo. Decorated cloth, $1.50.

“Miss Moss sees life as a sunny comedy and tells of it with cheerful relish. The characters are all human. The story is sparkling with vivacity and good humor.”—Pittsburg Commercial Gazette.

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“Decidedly clever, and well worth reading.”—N. Y. Mail and Express.

J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY, PHILADELPHIA

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Jack
Raymond.

By E. L. VOYNICH.

12mo. Cloth, $1.50; paper, 50 cents.

“The strongest novel that the present season has produced.”—Pall Mall Gazette, London.

“Wonderful and terrible; wonderful in its intellectual effect terrible for the intensity of feeling effects.”—Boston Courier.

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Sister
Teresa.

By GEORGE MOORE.

12mo. Cloth, $1.50; paper, 50 cents.

“A psychological study of extraordinary power, revealing the fineness of George Moore’s literary methods.”—Philadelphia Press.

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J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY, PHILADELPHIA.

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THE UNTILLED FIELD

By GEORGE MOORE

George Moore is ranked as the most conspicuous of serious workers in the field of fiction in Great Britain to-day. This new volume contains the most natural as well as some of the most intense and remarkable of its author’s work.

12mo. Cloth, $1.50.

A TAR-HEEL BARON

A novel of North Carolina life, by

MABELL SHIPPIE CLARKE PELTON

Mrs. Pelton’s story has to do with a gallant and brave German gentleman who comes as a stranger into the little settlement. It is a study of character, at the same time a love story which deals with contemporary figures and conditions.

12mo. Cloth, $1.50.

SPINNERS OF LIFE

By VANCE THOMPSON

A novel of New York club and society life of to-day, in a strong psychological vein.

Mr. Thompson’s novel will surprise and appeal with singular force to that appetite for the esoteric which exists in all of us. It is a modern novel of New York club and society life.

12mo. Cloth, $1.50.

J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY, PHILADELPHIA

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