down on the nursery couch, close
to his dead child, and God sent him the sleep He gives to His beloved
when the sorrow is too great for them. On awakening he found Mrs.
Filmer at his side. She was weeping, and her tears made Antony blind
also. He drew his hands across his eyes, and stood up, feeling weak
and shattered, and ill from head to feet.

"Antony," said Mrs. Filmer, "you have behaved nobly this day. I cannot
thank you as I would like to."

"Emma is dead!" he answered. "Dear mother, that is all I can bear
to-night. Such a sad, little, suffering life! If I could only have
suffered for her! If I could only have been with her at _the hour_. I
watched for that favor. I grudged to leave her, even to eat or
sleep--and I missed it after all! For I hoped at the moment of parting
to have some vision or assurance that her tender little soul would not
have to pass alone through the great outer space and darkness. Where
is she now? Who is her Helper? Will Christ indeed carry her in his
bosom until her small feet reach the fields of Paradise? Mother!
mother! I am broken-hearted this night. Who was with her when she
died?"

"It seems that she died alone. The nurse thought she was asleep, and
she went downstairs to make herself a cup of tea. When she came back
Emma was dead. The doctor says she had a fit and died in it."

"No one to help her! No one to kiss her! It is too cruel! My dear one
would open her eyes at last and find no father--no mother--no one at
all to say 'good-bye' to her!"

"Come, come, Antony! The doctor thinks she never recovered consciousness.
He says she did not suffer. You have saved Rose. Go and say a word to
her. She is in despair."

"I will speak to her as soon as I can. I cannot see her until--until
the child has been taken away from me."

Mrs. Filmer pressed him no further. She thought it best to leave him
much alone. His thin, worn cheeks, and sunken eyes--showing pain,
anxiety, and sleepless nights--were touchingly human. They said
plainer than any words could, "Trouble me no more until I am stronger;
until my soul can reach that serene depth where it can say, 'Thy will
be done,' until, indeed, I can turn to Romans, the eighth chapter and
the twenty-eighth verse, and stand firmly with its grand charter of
God's deliverance in my hand."

When the child was buried, Antony made an effort to speak to his wife.
But she would not speak to him. She had assumed an attitude quite
unexpected--that