How well he knew the road, over which he was now groping his staggering
and uncertain way! In how many moods he had walked it, actuated by how
many different passions and impulses! And now he was as one dead, whose
body is dragged strangely onward by some invincibly-determined will. A
great fear suddenly seized upon him that here, upon this very last mile
of all the weary ones he had trod since the previous night-fall, he was
going to sink down, and give up his life and his attempt at the same
moment. Oh, Heaven help him to the end! O Sophie, let not the tender
strain upon his heart relax!

For nothing less than that can save him now! His eyes see no longer; his
feet stumble in ignorance; he sleeps, and dreams of events which
happened--was it long ago?--upon this road. Here he met and talked with
Cornelia, that autumn day. Back there, they paused on the brow of the
hill, one moonlight night, was that so long ago, too? Here, some time in
the past, he had found a lifeless body in the snow, clad in a bridal
dress; here, he had caught a runaway horse by the head, and--

He fell headlong to the ground. The shock partly awoke him. He struggled
up to his knees--was there any one assisting him?--another struggle--he
was on his feet. Right before him lay the house--the old Parsonage;
there were the gate, the path, the porch. He made a final effort--it
forced a deadly sweat from his forehead--and still there was a vague
sense of being supported and directed by some one--he could not stop to
see or question who; but, had it not been for that support, he must have
failed. The gate opened, with its old creak and rattle, before him; a
hand he saw not held it till he passed through.

Now, at the moment when he had fallen in the road, of the three who had
all along been awaiting him within--of these three, two only were left.
But, so quietly had the third departed, the others perceived not that
she was gone. The features, which remained, wore an expression of
angelic happiness. It was as she had wished.

At the same moment, too, through a rift in the dull sky, a little gleam
of sunshine--the first of that gray day--descended, and rested upon
Bressant. It accompanied him to the gate, and, still keeping close to
him, slipped up the path between the trees, and even followed him on to
the porch, where it brightened about him, as he put his hand to the
latch. Was it a symbol of some loving spirit, newly set free from its
mortal body, co