“Permit me, dearest,” he said, “for henceforth your sorrows are also mine.” What farther he said is sacred between those two hearts. The day waned--the shadows of evening gathered over the earth, and the shadows of death over the chamber. Mr. Wellworth and Colonel Houston arrived about the same time. The clergyman was immediately shown up into the chamber of Mrs. Helmstedt. She was sinking rapidly. He went gravely to her side, expressing sorrow for her illness, and anxiety to hear how she felt. And finding from her answers that she still retained full possession of her brilliant intellect, he drew a chair, sat down, and entered upon religious topics. But Mrs. Helmstedt smiled mournfully, and stopped him, saying: “Too late, good friend, too late; I would that I had had your Christian faith imprinted upon my heart while it was soft enough to receive the impression--it might have made me happier at this hour; but it is too late, and it does not matter!” “Not matter! that you have no faith! Oh! Mrs. Helmstedt, my child, is it possible that with all your splendor of intellectual endowments you lack faith!” Marguerite smiled more mournfully than before. “I believe in God, because I see Him in His glorious works; I believe in Christ as a wonder that once existed on this earth; but--as for a future state of rewards and punishments--as for our immortality, I tell you, despite all the gifts of intellect with which you credit me, and my extensive reading, observation and experience, at this hour I know not where in the next I shall be; or whether with the stopping of this beating brain, and the cooling of this burning heart, thought and affection will cease to exist; or if they will be transferred to another form and sphere. I know nothing.” “God have mercy on you!” prayed the good minister, who would then and there have sought to inspire the “saving faith,” but that the dying woman silenced him. “Too late, dear friend, too late; the short time left me must be given, not to selfish thoughts on my own uncertain future, but to the welfare of those I am about to leave. Will you please to ring the bell?” The minister complied. Mrs. Houston forestalled every servant by hastening to answer the summons. “Dear Nellie, bring Ralph and Margaret to me, and ask your husband and the doctor to attend. And let lights be brought, Nellie; it is growing dusky here, or else my sight is failing, and I would see the face of my child plainly.” Nellie stopped an instant to press a kiss upon the clammy brow of her friend, and then hastened to do her bidding. A few minutes after, the door opened, and Ralph Houston entered, reverently supporting the pale but self-controlled maiden on his arm, and accompanied by his father, stepmother, and the doctor. They approached the bed, and grouped themselves around it. On the right side stood Ralph, Margaret, and Mr. Wellworth; on the left, Colonel and Mrs. Houston and Dr. Hartley.