She knew this without seeing it, and moving yet closer to him, she laid her face over his heart, her head fitting into the hollow of his arm as she clasped his hand with her small fingers. "Dot, my baby--oh, my little girl!" The words came with all his old strength of voice, and she felt that he was weeping. Startled at this outbreak, and alarmed for fear of some injury it might do him, all the girl's grief became swallowed up in the new energy that now surged through her. "Hush!" she said soothingly, placing her face against his own. "Hush, dear! Never mind me; I shall be well enough. I know--I know," choking back a sob that rose in her throat like a stinging blow, "that all is for the best, 'that He doeth all things well.'" "Yes, yes," her father murmured drowsily, as though calmed by her words and caresses. "Aye, my child, 'though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil.' God is on the other side, waiting--waiting--for me." His eyelids had fallen again, and the closing words came in a faint whisper. He was now breathing heavily as before, and was seemingly unconscious; and Dorothy felt that he had come back for a moment from out the dark shadows gathering to shut them apart, so that he might speak to her once more in the voice she loved so dearly. She did not stir, but remained kneeling by the bed, his arm around her, and his hand clasping her fingers with marvellous firmness. She could feel and hear the feeble beating of the loving heart that had ever held her so tenderly. Throbbing against her cheek, its pulses seemed to keep rhythm with the mournful booming of the surf on the shore. Suddenly, like a mighty ocean of falling waters, there came, to overwhelm her unnatural calm, the thought of what her world would be when that true, loyal heart was stilled,--when she could only lay her cheek against the earth that shut it away from her. A giant hand seemed clutching at her throat; the grief, rising in mighty bursts, could find no vent in tears, and a gasping cry sprang from her lips, causing her to stir unconsciously within his arm. His grasp tightened upon her hand, and her acutely listening ears heard him whisper brokenly, "'Lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end.'" The words brought to her a strange comfort. And now his feeble hand caressed her head in a wandering, fluttering way, and she felt as in her baby days when he used to rock her to sleep; for his failing voice began to croon the old hymn he so often sang to her then. She crept still closer to him. She was quieted for the moment, and filled with an awe as if angels were all about them. Her wild grief was hushed,--the agony of clutching pain in her throat dissolved itself in silent tears, and the sound of the surf now seemed a peaceful, soothing voice.