succeeded in doing so, and the nurses sat by and saw no
difference in him, till suddenly the candle, posed on a table near by,
flickered and went out, leaving only moonlight in the room. It was
moonlight so brilliant that the place seemed brighter than before,
though the beams were all concentrated on one spot, a blank space in the
middle of the wall upon which those two dim orbs in the bed were fixed
in an expectancy none there understood, for none knew that the summons
had come, and that for him the angel of death was at that moment
standing in the room.

Yet as moonlight is not the natural light for a sick man's bedside, one
amongst them had risen for another candle, when something--I had never
stopped to hear them say what--made him pause and look back, when he saw
distinctly outlined upon the white wall-space I have mentioned, the
figure--the unimaginable figure of a dog, large, fierce and
hungry-looking, which dashed by and--was gone. Simultaneously a cry came
from the bed, the first words for months--"Aline!"--the name of his
girl-wife, dead and gone for years. All sprang; some to chase the dog,
one to aid and comfort the sick man. But no dog was there, nor did he
need comfort more. He had died with that cry on his lips, and as they
gazed at his face, sunk low now in his pillow as if he had started up
and fallen back, a dead weight, they felt the terror of the moment grow
upon them till they, too, were speechless. For the aged features were
drawn into lines of unspeakable anguish and horror.

But as the night passed and morning came, all these lines smoothed out,
and when they buried him, those who had known him well talked of the
beautiful serenity which illumined the face which, since their first
remembrance of him, had carried the secret of a profound and unbroken
melancholy. Of the dog, nothing was said, even in whispers, till time
had hallowed that grave, and the little children about, grown to be men
and women. Then the garrulity of age had its way.

This story, and the images it called up, came like a shock as I halted
there, and instead of going on to the stables, I turned my steps toward
the house, where I summoned from his bed a certain old servant who had
lived longer in the family than myself.

Bidding him bring a lantern, I waited for him on the porch, and when he
came, I told him what I had seen. Instantly I knew that it was no new
story to him. He turned very pale and set down the lantern, which