"It isn't Helen, is it? No, she went away. Poor little girl!" The mind pursued its own sad communings. "Well, I guess God's got to put up wi' me. He's big enough to understand. He don't want apologies. I am what I am." The grayness of the dawn filled the room. Suddenly he raised himself slightly on his pillow. He grasped Arthur's hand. There came into the tired eyes a new light, a long, intense wonder-look. "_Mary!_" It was his wife's name. Then the strong face grew slowly empty of expression, the eyes closed. Archibold Masterman had laid himself down to rest among the generations of the dead, and all his love and hatred had perished with him, neither had he any more a portion in anything that is done under the sun. XXIV THE NEW WORLD Against the main-line platform of Waterloo Station the special boat-train was drawn up. It was half-past eight in the morning. Almost momently suburban trains arrived, discharging their crowds of workers, who passed in long files toward the portals of the station, and were swallowed up, like so many tiny streams, in the great sea of London. Some of them turned their eyes curiously, perhaps a little yearningly, toward the boat-train; but for the most part these arriving throngs passed on with sedate, indifferent faces. The boat-train represented liberty--it was the symbol of things free and large; but their thoughts did not go so far as that. For them, life offered no release; there was no discharge in their warfare; to the end of their days they would tread the city streets, push their humble fortunes as they best could amid its clangour, and sink into rest at last beneath its gray skies. Yet this morning the skies were not gray. The magic of June lay upon the city. The toil-worn metropolis had dressed itself in shining raiment, as if it would fain remind its departing sons that it also could be fair; as if it meant that this last vision of its fairness should be for them a rebuke and a torturing memory through all the years of absence. A man and a woman crossed the platform, closely observing the labels on the windows of the carriages. "Ah! here it is! 'Masterman and party,'" said Bundy. "They should be here by this time, shouldn't they?" said Mrs. Bundy. "No, there's plenty of time--nearly half an hour." They stood beside the train, talking in eager tones. "You ordered flowers for their cabin, didn't you?" "Yes; and I've done something else. I've got a suite of rooms for them. But they won't know that till they get aboard." "Ah! I'm glad of that! I suppose it's the last thing we can do for them." "Pray don't be melancholy," said Bundy, with an attempt at cheerfulness. "They're going to be very happy. Let us see them off with smiles." "Ah! it's very well to talk. But these partings make me miserable. I couldn't have loved Arthur more if he'd been my own son. But he won't want me any more now. He'll have Elizabeth." "Well, aren't you glad of it?"