With a cry he sprang forward and dropped on one knee in the roadway, and pointed with his arm. Another figure had appeared from beyond the statue and was standing before it, looking up at it--the tall figure of a man. While 'Linda glanced from the figure back to the old man kneeling in the roadway, she was stunned by a sudden loud report and a blinding flash that seemed to scatter and drive away the mist; and then, in a moment, the figure before the statue turned swiftly round and stumbled and flung up its arms and fell prone before it. She ran to it and, scarcely knowing what she did, turned it over and looked down at the face. And it was the face of Comethup! She had a dim, wild, despairing hope that she might be dreaming; that the gray morning and the stone figure at the foot of which she knelt, and the man whose head was propped upon her arm, and the wild old figure standing weeping and beating its breast beside her might all be shadows in a dream she would wake to forget. But when she heard the voice of the man in her arms she knew that it was all true. "'Linda! God is very merciful--and all the world he builds for us is very, very right--and very sweet. But a moment ago, as I stood there, with nothing to hope for--hold me closer and look into my eyes--I prayed for death. And see--in a moment it comes--swiftly, too. I don't--don't understand, but it's all--all very right, isn't it?" "Dear," she whispered, "can't we do anything? Tell me--you are not--not really hurt?" He smiled up at her with the smile she knew and remembered so well. "We must not--must not lie to each other now," he said, "because there is so little time. I am dying----No, don't turn your face away; keep your arms tight about me. He did not--did not know; don't let them--harm him. Quick--there is little time; tell me--why you are here. Have you left her?" "I am going--going abroad with her. I came here to see the old place again for the last time." "God is very good," he whispered, closing his eyes. "I might have died--without seeing you." He stirred a little in her arms and tried weakly to thrust her away. "Now, you--you must go; you must leave me, dear. You must go--back to her." "No, no," she cried, holding him closer. "I will not leave you now." "You must--you must. And take him with you. Hide him; don't let them harm him. Oh, why torture me now? Do me this one--one last service. Go back--back to her; keep this from her. Tell her--some day--that I died--you need not--tell her--anything else. Will you go?" "I can not, I can not!" she cried, weeping. "You must--or you will undo--all I have tried--so hard to do. Don't you understand?" He raised his eyes to the statue above them. "See--he smiles above us. You must leave me here. Here is my--resting place--here my fitting--monument. Leave me--here." His eyes were closing again; his hands were groping for hers.