She answers not. How can she break with the sounds of human grief the brooding peace that shines on the pathway of this departing spirit? Her voice, the sweetest one he will ever hear on this side of eternity, rises low but firm in one of the old-fashioned hymns the old-fashioned captain loved: "Fear not, I am with thee. O be not dismay'd, I, I am thy God, and will still give thee aid; I'll strengthen thee, help thee, and cause thee to stand, Upheld by my righteous, omnipotent hand. "When through the deep waters I call thee to go, The rivers of grief shall not thee overflow; For I will be with thee thy troubles to bless, And sanctify to thee thy deepest distress." "Amen," he whispers, lowly. "His rod and His staff they comfort me." Silence falls for a brief space. He is gathering his fainting strength for the words that come slowly from his lips: "I have been the bearer to you of unwelcome tidings so often, Mrs. Winans, that it absolutely pains me now to recall it." "Do not recall it," she rejoins, earnestly. "Why should you? The power overruling such things is higher than we are. You have been a comforter to me more often than you know of--take only that thought with you." He smiles as she re-arranges his pillows, lifting his head so that his faint breath comes more evenly. The stray end of one of her long silken curls falls over his breast an instant, and he touches it with a caressing hand. "It is given to me," he answers, "to bear you good tidings before I go. Your memories of me--will not thus be all unpleasant ones." The eager remonstrance forming itself on her lip dies unspoken as he goes on: "You have borne sorrow with a very brave heart, Gracie--have been, as you once told me, and as I really think, _fireproof_! Can you bear joy as well?" She cannot possibly speak. Something rising in her throat literally chokes her breath. "Little sister, be strong. Lulu has written--well, that your husband--that Winans is in London, alive and well--and is coming home to you--in May." There is utter silence. She is quiet always, in pain or pleasure. He sees only her small hands clasping each other close, and her violet eyes--those unerring indices of her feelings--growing dusk black under the lashes. But something in the curve of her firm lip does not satisfy him. He feebly lifts his hand to touch hers. "You will not be hard and unforgiving? It is not like Grace Winans to be that. Promise me that you will forgive him freely! If he acted wrongly he has suffered for it. It is so easy to go wrong--to err is human, you know." No wavering in that sternly curved red lip shows acquiescence. His voice rises higher, with a throb of pain in it: "'If ye forgive not men their trespasses how shall my Father which is in heaven forgive you?' Gracie, say 'I promise.'"