hich
had haunted her for years, fulfilled there to the uttermost. She knelt
by her son when we laid him down, and wiped off a spot or two of blood
from his forehead, and then kept his hand in hers, kissing it often. We
had sent on before to warn the village doctor, and he visited Guy alone
in his room.

Powell had been a surgeon's mate in his youth, and was serving under
Collingwood at Trafalgar when his ship stood first into action, and,
like a sovereign of the old days, led the van of the battle. There was
no shape of shattered and maimed humanity with which he had not been
familiar, and my last hope died away when I saw him come forth,
trembling all over, his rugged features convulsed with grief.

"I saw him born," the old man sobbed out. "I never thought to see him
die--and die _so_!"

Guy had received a mortal injury in the spine, though how long he might
linger none could tell.

There broke from Lady Catharine's white lips one terrible heart-broken
cry--"If God would only take me first!" Then her self-control returned,
and she went into her son's room, outwardly quite calm.

I have never tried to fancy what passed at the meeting of those two
strong hearts, after the one had been brought suddenly, face to face,
with an awful death, the other with a yet more awful sorrow.

CHAPTER XXXVI.

"Ah! Sir Launcelot, there thou liest, that never wert matched of
earthly hands. Thou wert the fairest person, and the goodliest of
any that rode in the press of knights; thou wert the truest to thy
sworn brother of any that buckled on the spur; and thou wert the
faithfullest of any that have loved _paramours_: most courteous
wert thou, and gentle of all that sat in hall among dames; and thou
wert the sternest knight to thy mortal foe that ever laid spear in
the rest."

When Powell's self-command gave way so completely after he saw the
nature of Guy's case, it was not because he knew it must end fatally,
but because his skill told him what fearful agonies must precede the
release. All the surgeons who were called in could do nothing but
confirm these forebodings. The colossal strength and vital energy of
Livingstone's frame and constitution yielded but slowly to a blow which
would have crushed a weaker man instantly. All the outworks were ruined
and carried, but Death had still to fight hard before he won the
citadel. I can not go through the details; I will only say that,
s