"Call up all your courage, my dear child," he whispered, leaning over her, "look to the Lord for strength, and who shall say you may not he able to do the poor dying wretch some good?" She struggled determinately with her faintness, and they drew near the bed. Boyd started up at sight of her, thrusting the maimed hand under the bedclothes, and holding out the other with a ghastly smile. "You're an angel, Mrs. Travilla!" he gasped, "an angel of mercy to a miserable wretch whom you've a good right to hate." "No," she said, taking the hand in a kindly grasp, "I have no right to hate you, or any one--I whose sins against my Lord are far, far greater than yours against me or mine. I forgive you, as I hope to be forgiven. May God forgive you also." "No, no, it is too late, too late for that!" he groaned. "I have sinned against light and knowledge. He has called and I refused many, many times; and now the door is shut." "It is your adversary the devil who tells you that," she said, tears streaming from her eyes; "he would destroy your soul: but the words of Jesus are, 'Him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out?' 'Whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely.'" "Ah, but he also says, 'Because I have called and ye refused; I have stretched out my hand, and no man regarded; but ye have set at naught all my counsel, and would none of my reproof; I also will laugh at your calamity; I will mock when your fear cometh; when your fear cometh as desolation, and your destruction cometh as a whirlwind; when distress and anguish cometh upon you. Then shall they call upon me, but I will not answer.' Oh it's all true, every word of it!" he cried, with a look of horror and despair that none who saw it could ever forget, "I feel it in my inmost soul. There was a time when mercy's door was open to me, but it's shut now, shut forever." "O George, George!" sobbed his aunt, "the invitation is without limit--'whosoever will;' if you have a will to come, it cannot be that it is even now too late." "But those words--those dreadful words," he said, turning eagerly toward her, "Then shall they call upon me, but I will not answer.'" "Are addressed to those who desire deliverance, not from sin itself, but only from its punishment," said Mr. Dinsmore. "If you have any desire to be saved from your sins, to be cleansed from their pollution, to be made holy, it is not too late--the 'whosoever will' is for you." He shook his head sadly. "I don't know, I don't know, a death-bed is a poor place to analyze one's feelings. Oh! warn men everywhere not to put it off, not to put it off! Tell them it is running a fearful risk." "We will, we will," said his aunt; "but, O George, think of yourself: 'cry to Jesus, he is able to save to the uttermost,' and he has no pleasure in the death of any soul; he would have you turn now and live: oh cry to him for mercy!" "Too late, too late!" he muttered faintly, "the door is shut."