"I think it might be hazardous for the young lady. Were a fatal end to come suddenly, you would not like the girl you love to be subjected to the horror of the scene, to be haunted perhaps for years by the memory of that one tragic hour. There is no necessity for her presence here. You can go and see her." "Yes, and risk being absent in my father's dying hours." "Better that risk than the risk of her unhappiness, should the end come while she were in the house." "Yes, I suppose that is so; but I can't help hoping that the end may be far off." The doctor pressed his hand in silence, and nodded good-bye as he stepped into his carriage. It was not for him to forbid hope, even if he knew that it was a delusive hope. CHAPTER III. WHILE LEAVES WERE FALLING. Fondly as he loved his betrothed wife, Allan felt that affection and duty alike forbade him to leave his father while the shadow of doom hung over the threshold, while there could be no assurance from day to day that the end would not come before sundown. There had been enough in the physician's manner to crush hopefulness even in the most sanguine breast; and it was in vain that Allan tried to argue within himself against the verdict of learning and experience. He knew in his inmost heart that the physician was right. The ordeal through which George Carew had passed had changed him with the change that too palpably foreshadows the last change of all. In the hollow eyes, the blue-veined forehead and pale lips, in the inert and semi-transparent hands, in the far-off look of the man whose race is run and who has nothing more to do with active life, Allan saw the sign manual of the destroyer. He had need to cherish and garner these quiet days in his father's company, to hang fondly on every word from those pale lips, to treasure each thought as a memory to be hereafter dear and sacred. Whatever other love there might be for him upon this earth--even the love of her whom he had made his second self, upon whom he depended for all future gladness--no claim could prevail against the duty that held him here, by the side of the father whose days were numbered. "I am so glad to have you with me, Allan," Mr. Carew said, in the grave voice which had lost none of its music, though it had lost much of its power. "It seems selfish on my part to keep you here, away from that nice girl, your sweetheart; but though you are making a sacrifice now----" "No, no, no," interrupted Allan, "it is no sacrifice. I had rather be here than anywhere in the world. Thank God that I am here, that no accident of distance has kept me from you."