"You should not have come", he managed to say. "My love, my love!" "Is there no hope?" she sobbed. "Oh, Charles, is there _no_ hope?" "May God soothe it to you! May He have you always in His good keeping!" "And is it no trouble to you to die?" she went on, reproach in her anguished tone. "Have you no regret for the world, and--and for those you leave behind?" "It is God's will," he breathed. "To myself it is no trouble, for He has mercifully taken the trouble from me. I regret you, my Helen, I regret the world. Or, rather, I should regret it, but that I know I am going to one brighter and better. You will come to me there, my dear one, and we shall live together for ever." Helen knelt down by the bed; he was lying close on the edge of it; and laid her wet face against his. He held her to him for a moment, kissed her fervently, and then motioned to me to take her away. "For your own sake, my dear," he whispered. "You are in danger here. Give my dear love to them all." Helen just waved her hand back at me, as much as to say, Don't _you_ interfere. But at that moment the fat old nurse bustled in again, with the announcement that two of the doctors and Mr. Leafchild's rector were crossing the road. That aroused Helen. One minute's close embrace, her tears bedewing his dying cheeks, one lingering hand-clasp of pain, and they parted. Parted for all time. But not for eternity. "God be with you ever!" he breathed, giving her his solemn blessing. "Farewell, dear Johnny Ludlow!" "I am so sorry! If you could but get well!" I cried, my eyes not much dryer than Helen's. "I shall soon be well: soon," he answered with a sweet faint smile, his feeble clasp releasing my hand, which he had taken. "But not here. Fare you well." Helen hid herself in a turn of the passage till the doctors had gone in, and then we walked down the street together, she crying softly. Just opposite Salt Lane, a fly passed at a gallop. Dr. Leafchild sat in it muffled in coats, a cloud of sorrow on his generally pompous face. * * * * * And that was the abrupt end of poor Charles Leafchild, for he died at midnight, full of peace. God's ways are not as our ways; or we might feel tempted to ask why so good and useful a servant should have been taken. And so, you perceive, there was another marriage of Helen Whitney frustrated. Fortune seemed to be against her. JELLICO'S PACK. I.