A good tenor voice had once been his, but the best of it had gone the irrevocable road, like many of his other endowments and possessions. Enough remained, however, to give a touching sweetness to the grand old words, and as he sang his face became softened, beautified, transfigured, all that was erring and evil dropping out of it. The years, too, fell away, and he was a little child again--nor had he ever been anything else--just a child, weak, wandering, blundering, stumbling often--just a child, brother to us all. “Do you think there is anything for us on the other side of death?” he asked, the childlike look still upon his face. “I hope so.” “Well, I believe there is,” he said, with unwonted decision. “I have always believed so, in spite of my bad practice, though I don’t know what it is; but I am not afraid though I’m no saint. It seems all right.” “Yes, whatever it is, it must be all right,” Cartice answered. “It could not be anything else. But I wish we knew something about it. I wish we knew.” “It may not be long before I know. You see what I am--a shadow of what I used to be, a wreck in everything and nobody to blame but myself. I guess the end of the road can’t be very far ahead. After I make the lonely journey, I’ll come back and tell you something about it if I can.” “Ah, Colonel Layton, thousands, millions have started on that journey with the same promise upon their lips, but who has kept it?” “Yes, it is a stumper,” he said, reflectively, “but in spite of it I have faith that perhaps I can. Mother and father are on the other side somewhere. This morning they seem very near to me--nearer than ever before since they went away. I feel that I might meet them at any turn.” With a sigh and a smile he lifted his hat in graceful adieu and went slowly down the stairs, softly singing, “Death like a narrow divides That heavenly land from ours.” Two hours later Cartice was sitting at her desk in the editorial office of the _Register_, when a stranger entered. Speaking low, as even the rudest do when they bring dread news, he said: “Colonel Layton fell dead on the street a few minutes ago. He has been carried into Dr. Olcott’s office, and the doctor wants you to come at once. He knows you are a close friend of Mrs. Layton, and I guess he wants you to tell her and help make arrangements.” Dazed and trembling, Mrs. Doring was about to start when Prescott entered, and he volunteered to accompany her. They found everything calm and orderly. The doctor was noted for keeping an even mind under all circumstances, and had permitted no intrusion of the curious and idle. He opened the door to an inner room, and led them to a sofa on which the dead man lay awaiting the coroner. With professional coolness the doctor turned down the sheet, saying, “He was already gone when they brought him in.”