"Your grand-daughter, Catherine, is coming up to see you in a few minutes," she said, trying as always to guard him against surprise. "How cold your hands are, Father. I could not let her see you till she had been disinfected after her chill for fear she might give it to you." He was not listening. "Serena," he said feebly. "The world is not my world any longer. I am a stranger and a sojourner in it. All my landmarks are swept away. I wish I could be swept away, too." Serena took his cold hands in hers, and held them to her breast. "Father," she said, "unless you and countless others, all the best men of your time had given your lives for your country, we should have no country to-day. You bled for us, you kept it for us, for your son, and your son's son: and we all honour and thank you for what you have done for us." John Damer's eyes looked full at her in a great humility. "I see now," he said, in his thin quavering voice, "that I only died for my country. I did not live for her. I took things more or less as I found them. I was blind, blind, blind." She would fain have lied to him, but her voice failed her. He looked piercingly at her. "Did the others--all those who never fought--there were so many who did not fight--and those who fought and came back--did they live for her, did they try to make a different England, to make her free and happy--after the war?" "Some did," said Serena, "but only a minority." She saw his eyes fix suddenly. His face became transfigured. "She's coming up the path," he said, in an awed whisper. "Catherine is coming." Serena followed his rapt gaze and saw her daughter coming towards them in a white gown, her hat hanging by a ribbon in her hand, the sunshine upon her amber hair. "Catherine," said the old man, "Catherine, you have come to me at last. You said we should sit here together when I was old. You've come at last." And he, who for fifty years had not walked a step, without help, raised himself to his full height, and went to meet her with outstretched arms. They caught him before he fell, and one on each side of him supported him back to the bench. He sank down upon it, blue to the lips. Serena laid the trembling white head upon her daughter's breast. The bewildered young girl put her arms gently round him in silence. John Damer sighed once in supreme content, and then--breathed no more. The Ghost of a Chance "Yes, but the years run circling fleeter, Ever they pass me--I watch, I wait-- Ever I dream, and awake to meet her; She cometh never, or comes too late." _Sir Alfred Lyall._