Then it came to Erica that the life upon earth was, after all, as compared with the eternal life, what the day is in the life of a child. It seemed everything at the time, but was in truth such a fragment. And as she lay there in the immeasurably greater agony of later life, once more sobbing: “I had hoped, I had planned, this is more than I can bear!” a Comforter infinitely grater, a Father whose love was infinitely stronger, drew her so near that the word “near” was but a mockery, and told her, as the earthly father had told her with such perfect truth: “One day you will understand, child; one day you will be glad to have shared the pain!” In the next room there was for some time quiet. Poor Tom, heavy with grief and weariness, fell asleep beside the fire; Raeburn was for the most part very still as if wrapped in thought. At length a heavy sigh made Brian ask if he were in pain. “Pain of mind,” he said, “not of body. Don't misunderstand me,” he said after a pause, with the natural fear least Brian should fancy his secularism failed him at the near approach of death. “For myself I am content; I have had a very full life, and I have tried always yes, I think I may say always--to work entirely for the good of Humanity. But I am wretched about Erica. I do not see how the home can be a very happy one for her when I am gone.” For a minute Brian hesitated; but it seemed to him when he thought out the matter, that a father so loving as Raeburn would find no jealousy at the thought that the love he had deemed exclusively his own might, after all, have been given to another. “I do not know whether I am right to tell you,” he said. “Would it make you happier to know that I love Erica that I have loved her for nearly nine years?” Raeburn gave an ejaculation of astonishment. There was a long silence; for the idea, once suggested to him, he began to see what a likely thing it was and to wonder that he had not thought of it before. “I think you are well suited to each other,” he said at last. “Now I understand your visit to Florence. What took you away again so suddenly?” Brian told him all about the day at Fiesole. He seemed greatly touched; all the little proofs and coincidences which had never struck him at the time were so plain now. They were still discussing it when, at about five o'clock, Erica returned. She was pale and sad, but the worn, harassed, miserable look had quite gone. It was a strange time and place for a betrothal. “Brian has been telling me about the day at Fiesole,” said Raeburn, letting his weak, nerveless hands play about in her hair as she knelt beside the bed. “You have been a leal bairn to me, Eric; I don't think I could have spared you then even though Brian so well deserved you. But now it makes me very happy to leave you to him; it takes away my only care.” Erica had colored faintly, but there was an absence of responsiveness in her manner which troubled Raeburn.