"What place is this?" asked the wife.

She was unacquainted with hospitals and sickness.

"This is a place where they cure the sick, and succour the dying, dear Mrs. Wyndham," gently remarked Esther Helps.

"They cure the sick here, do they? But I will cure my husband myself. I know the way." She smiled. "Take me to him, Esther. How slow you are. Beloved Esther—I don't thank you—I have no words to say thank you—but my heart is so happy I think it will burst."

The porter came forward, then a nurse. Several ceremonies had to be gone through, several remarks made, several questions asked. Valentine heard and saw nothing. Esther helped Valentine to take off her cloak; and she stood in her simple long plain white dress, with her bright hair like a glory round her happy face.

The nurse who finally conducted them to the ward where Wyndham lay looked at her in a sort of bewilderment. Esther and the nurse went first, and Valentine slowly followed between the long rows of beds; some of the men said afterwards that an angel had gone through the ward on the night that the strolling minstrel, poor fellow, died. The sister who had charge of the ward turned and whispered a word to Esther, then she pushed aside a screen which surrounded one of the beds.

"Your husband is very ill," she said, looking with a world of pity into Valentine's bright eyes. "You ought to be prepared; he is very ill."

"Thank you, I am quite prepared. I have come to cure him."

Then she went inside the screen, and Esther and the nurse remained without.

Wyndham was lying with his eyes closed; his sunken cheeks, his deathly pallor, his quick and hurried breath might have prepared the young wife for the worst. They did not. She stood for a moment at the foot of the bed, her hands clasped in ecstasy, her eyes shining, a wonderful smile bringing back the beauty to her lips. Then she came forward and lay gently down by the side of the dying man. She slipped her hand under his head and laid her cheek to his.

"At last, Gerald," she said, "at last you have come back! You didn't die. You are changed, greatly changed; but you didn't die, Gerald."

He opened his eyes and looked her full in the face.

"Valentine!"

"Hush, you are too weak to talk. Stay quiet, I am with you. I will nurse you back to strength. Oh, my darling, you didn't die."

"Your darling, Valentine? Did you call me your darling?"

"I said it. I say it. You are all the world to me; without you the world is empty. Oh, how I love you—how I have loved you for years."

"Then it was good I didn't die," said Wyndham, he raised his eyes, looked up and smiled. His smile was one of ecstasy.

"Of course it was good that you didn't die, and now you are going to get well. Lie still. Do you like my hand under your head?"

"Like it?"

"Yes; you need not tell me. Let me talk to you; don't answer me. Gerald, my father told me. He told me what he had done; he told me what you had done. He wants me to forgive him, but I'm not going to forgive him. I'll never forgive him, Gerald. I have ceased to love him, and I'll never forgive him; all my love is for you."

"Not all, wife—not quite all. Give him back a little, and—forgive."

"How weak you are, Gerald, and your voice sounds miles away."

"Forgive him, Valentine."

"Yes, if you wish it. Lie still, darling."

"Valentine—that money."

"I know about it—that blood-money. The price of your precious life. It shall be paid back at once."

"Then God will forgive me. I thank Him, unspeakably."

"Gerald, you are very weak. I can scarcely hear your words. Does it tire you dreadfully to talk? See, I will hold your hand; when you are too tired to speak your fingers can press mine. Gerald, you were outside our house on Tuesday night. Yes, I feel the pressure of your hand; you were there. Gerald, you were very unhappy that night."

"But not now, darling," replied Wyndham. He had found his voice; his words came out with sudden strength and joy. "I made a mistake that night, wife. I won't tell it to you. I made a mistake."

"And you are really quite, quite happy now."

"Happy! Sorrow is put behind me—the former things are done away."

"You will be happier still when you come home to baby and me."

"You'll come to me, Val; you and the boy."

"What do you say? I can't hear you."

"You'll come to me."

"I am with you."

"You'll come—up—to me."

Then she began to understand.

Half-an-hour later the nurse and Esther drew the screen aside and came in. Valentine's face was nearly as white as Wyndham's. She did not see the two as they came in. Her eyes were fixed on her husband's, her hand still held his.

"He wants a stimulant," said the nurse.

She poured something out of a bottle and put it between the dying man's lips. He opened his eyes when she did this, and looked at Valentine.

"Are you still there? Hold my hand."

"Do you think I would let it go? I have been wanting this hand to clasp mine for so long, oh, for so long."

The nurse again put some stimulant between Gerald's lips.

"You must not tire his strength, madam," she said. "Even emotion, even joyful emotion is more than he can bear just now."

"Is it, nurse? Then I will sit quiet, and not speak. I don't mind how long I stay, nor how quiet I keep, if only I can save him. Nurse, I know he is very ill, but, but——"

Her lips quivered, and her eyes, dry and bright and hungry, were fixed on the nurse. Wyndham, too, was looking at the nurse with a question written on his face. She bent down low, and caught his faint whisper.

"Your husband bids you hope," she said then, turning to Valentine. "He bids you take courage; he bids you to have the best hope of all—the hope eternal. Madam, when you clasp hands up there you need not part."

"Did you tell her to say that to me, Gerald?" asked the wife. "Oh, no, you couldn't have told her to say those words. Oh, no, you love me too well to go away."

"God loves you, Valentine," suddenly said Gerald. "God loves you, and He loves me, and His eternal love will surround us. I up there, you here. In that love we shall be one."

Only the nurse knew with what difficulty Wyndham uttered these words, but Valentine saw the light in his eyes. She bowed her head on his thin hand, her lips kissed it—she did not speak.

To the surprise of the sister who had charge of the ward. Wyndham lingered on for hours—during the greater part of the night. Valentine and Esther never left him. Esther sat a little in the shadow where her pale face could scarcely be seen. If she felt personal grief she kept it under. The chief actors in the tragedy, the cruelly-wronged husband and wife, absorbed all her thoughts. No, she had no time, no room, to think of herself.

Wyndham was going—Brother Jerome would no longer be known in the streets of East London; the poor, the sorrowful, would grieve at not seeing his face again. The touch of his hand could no longer comfort—the light in his eyes could no longer bless. The Mission would have to do without Brother Jerome—this missioner was about to render up his account to the Judge of all.

The little attic in Acacia Villas would also be empty; the tired man would not need the few comforts that Esther had collected round him—the tiresome cough, the weary restless step would cease to disturb Cherry's rest, and Esther's chief object in life would be withdrawn.

He who for so long was supposed to be dead would be dead in earnest. Valentine would be a real widow, little Gerald truly an orphan.

All these thoughts thronged through Esther's mind as she sat in the shadow behind the screen and listened to the chimes outside as they proclaimed the passing time, and the passing away also of a life.

Every moment lives of men go away—souls enter the unknown country. Some go with regret, some with rejoicing. In some cases there are many left behind to sorrow—in other cases no one mourns.

Wyndham had sinned, he had yielded to temptation; he had been weak—a victim it is true—still a victim who with his eyes open had done a great wrong. Yet Esther felt that for some at least it was a good thing that Wyndham was born.

"I, for one, thank God that I knew him," she murmured. "He has caused me suffering, but he has raised me. I thank God that I was permitted to know such a man. The world would, I suppose, speak of him as a sinner, but to my way of thinking, if ever there was a saint he is one."

So the night passed on, and Valentine remained motionless by the dying man's bed. What her thoughts were, none might read.

At last, towards the break of day, the time when so many souls go away, Wyndham stirred faintly and opened his eyes. Valentine moved forward with an eager gesture. He looked at her, but there was no comprehension in his glance.

"What is the matter?" said Valentine to the nurse. "I scarcely know him—his face has altered."

"It looks young, madam. Dying faces often do so. Hark, he is saying something."

"Lilias," said Wyndham. "Lilly—mother calls us—we are to sing our evening hymn.

'Bright in the happy land!'

Lilias, do you hear mother; she is calling? Kneel down—our evening prayers—by mother—we always say our prayers by mother's knee. Kneel, Lilias, see, my hands are folded—'Our Father'——"

There was a long pause after the last words, a pause followed by one more breath of infinite content, and then the nurse closed the dead man's eyes.