astes stretching
around them, were the living and the dying man, with the horse standing
motionless beside them, and, above, the gloom of the sullen sky. No aid
was possible; they could but wait, in the stupefaction of despair, for
the end of all to come.

In that awful stillness, in that sudden lull in the madness of the
hurricane, death had a horror which it never wore in the riot of the
battlefield, in the intoxication of the slaughter. There was no pity in
earth or heaven; the hard, hot ground sucked down its fill of blood; the
icy air enwrapped them like a shroud.

The faithfulness of love, the strength of gratitude, were of no avail;
the one perished in agony, the other was powerless to save.

In that momentary hush, as the winds sank low, the heavy eyes, half
sightless now, sought with their old wistful, doglike loyalty the face
to which so soon they would be blind forever.

"Would you tell me once, sir--now? I never asked--I never would have
done--but may be I might know in this last minute. You never sinned that
sin you bear the charge on?"

"God is my witness, no."

The light, that was like sunlight, shone once more in the aching,
wandering eyes.

"I knew, I knew! It was--"

Cecil bowed his head over him, lower and lower.

"Hush! He was but a child; and I--"

With a sudden and swift motion, as though new life were thrilling in
him, Rake raised himself erect, his arms stretched outward to the east,
where the young day was breaking.

"I knew, I knew! I never doubted. You will go back to your own some day,
and men shall learn the truth--thank God! thank God!"

Then, with that light still on his face, his head fell backward; and
with one quick, brief sigh his life fled out forever.

The time passed on; the storm had risen afresh; the violence of the
gusts blew yellow sheets of sand whirling over the plains. Alone, with
the dead one across his knees, Cecil sat motionless as though turned to
stone. His eyes were dry and fixed; but ever and again a great, tearless
sob shook him from head to foot. The only life that linked him with
the past, the only love that had suffered all things for his sake,
were gone, crushed out as though they never had been, like some insect
trodden in the soil.

He had lost all consciousness, all memory, save of that lifeless thing
which lay across his knees, like a felled tree, like a broken log, with
the glimmer of the tempestuous day so chill and white upon the uptur