“Laura, poor Laura,” he said, and his hand fondled the cold cheek which would never again glow beneath his touch, “I wish you could know I am here beside you, and how sorry I am for the past. Dear Laura, I wish you had forgiven me before you died.” “She did, father, and I am here to tell you what she said.” It was Magdalen’s voice which spoke and Magdalen who knelt by the weeping man, calling him father for the first time in her life! Passing the open door she had heard his words of grief, and her first impulse was to comfort him. It was very meet that there in the presence of the dead mother she should call him father, and the name fell involuntarily from her lips, sending a thrill of joy through his heart, and causing him to look up as she knelt beside him and press her closely to his heart. “Bless you, Magdalen, my darling, my daughter; bless you for calling me by that name. I have longed so for it, have wanted so to hear it. I shall be a better man. I am a better man. I believe in Alice’s God, and here by Laura’s side, in His presence and yours, I acknowledge my past transgressions. I renounce my infidel notions, in which I really never did believe. I wish to be forgiven. I pray that Jessie and Laura, both of whom I wronged, may have met together in the Heaven to which I am unfit to go.” He was talking more to himself than to Magdalen, who, when he had finished, told him of Laura’s last moments, omitting everything which could give him pain and telling him only of the kindly message left for him. “She wanted to kiss you,” Magdalen said, “and as you were not here, she gave it to me for you. This was _mother’s kiss_ for my _father_;” and Magdalen’s lips were pressed against the lips of Mr. Grey, who broke down entirely and sobbed like a little child. Could Laura have looked into that room, she surely would have been satisfied with the tears and kisses given her by her husband, who sat there until midnight, and whom the early morning found at her side. Had she been always as young and fair and as dearly loved as when he first called her his wife, he could not have seemed more sad or expressed more sorrow than he did. Everything which could be done for a dead person was done for her, and her funeral was arranged with as much care as if she had been a blessing rather than a trouble to the house over whose threshold they bore her, on a beautiful summer’s day, out to the little family cemetery on the hillside, where they buried her beside the proud old woman, who made no demur when the plebeian form was laid beside her. CHAPTER XLVII. BELL BURLEIGH.