He had seen widow Dobson pass through long before to keep the remainder of her watch on the bed in the lean-to, which had been his for many and many a sleepless and tearful night. Those nights were over--he should never see that poor chamber again, though it was scarce two feet distant. He began to lose all sense of the comparative duration of time: it seemed as long since kind Sally Dobson had bent over him with soft, lingering look, before going into the humble sleeping-room--as long as it was since his boyhood, when he stood by his mother dreaming of the life that should be his, with the scent of the cowslips tempting him to be off to the woodlands where they grew. Then there came a rush and an eddying through his brain--his soul trying her wings for the long flight. Again he was in the present: he heard the waves lapping against the shelving shore once again. And now his thoughts came back to Sylvia. Once more he spoke aloud, in a strange and terrible voice, which was not his. Every sound came with efforts that were new to him. 'My wife! Sylvie! Once more--forgive me all.' She sprang up, she kissed his poor burnt lips; she held him in her arms, she moaned, and said, 'Oh, wicked me! forgive me--me--Philip!' Then he spoke, and said, 'Lord, forgive us our trespasses as we forgive each other!' And after that the power of speech was conquered by the coming death. He lay very still, his consciousness fast fading away, yet coming back in throbs, so that he knew it was Sylvia who touched his lips with cordial, and that it was Sylvia who murmured words of love in his ear. He seemed to sleep at last, and so he did--a kind of sleep, but the light of the red morning sun fell on his eyes, and with one strong effort he rose up, and turned so as once more to see his wife's pale face of misery. 'In heaven,' he cried, and a bright smile came on his face, as he fell back on his pillow. Not long after Hester came, the little Bella scarce awake in her arms, with the purpose of bringing his child to see him ere yet he passed away. Hester had watched and prayed through the livelong night. And now she found him dead, and Sylvia, tearless and almost unconscious, lying by him, her hand holding his, her other thrown around him. Kester, poor old man, was sobbing bitterly; but she not at all. Then Hester bore her child to her, and Sylvia opened wide her miserable eyes, and only stared, as if all sense was gone from her. But Bella suddenly rousing up at the sight of the poor, scarred, peaceful face, cried out,-- 'Poor man who was so hungry. Is he not hungry now?' 'No,' said Hester, softly. 'The former things are passed away--and he is gone where there is no more sorrow, and no more pain.' But then she broke down into weeping and crying. Sylvia sat up and looked at her.