and
pray to God. But he had only strength to speak at intervals. Mr. Rose,
too, was there; it seemed as though he held the boy by the hand, as
fearlessly now, yea, joyously, he entered the waters of the dark river.

"Oh, I should _so_ like to stay with you, Monty, Horace, dear, dear
Eric, but God calls me. I am going--a long way--to my father and
mother--and to the light. I shall not be a cripple there--nor be in
pain." His words grew slow and difficult. "God bless you, dear fellows;
God bless you, dear Eric; I am going--to God."

He sighed very gently; there was a slight sound in his throat, and he
was dead. A terrible scene of boyish anguish followed, as they kissed
again and again the lifeless brow. But quietly, calmly, Mr. Rose checked
them, and they knelt down with streaming eyes while he prayed.

CHAPTER XV

HOME AGAIN

"O far beyond the waters
The fickle feet may roam,
But they find no light so pure and bright
As the one fair star of home;
The star of tender hearts, lady,
That glows in an English home,"

F.W.F.

That night when Eric returned to No. 7, full of grief, and weighed down
with the sense of desolation and mystery, the other boys were silent
from sympathy in his sorrow. Duncan and Llewellyn both knew and loved
Russell themselves, and they were awestruck to hear of his death; they
asked some of the particulars, but Eric was not calm enough to tell them
that evening. The one sense of infinite loss agitated him, and he
indulged his paroxysms of emotion unrestrained, yet silently. Reader, if
ever the life has been cut short which you most dearly loved, if ever
you have been made to feel absolutely lonely in the world, then, and
then only, will you appreciate the depth of his affliction.

But, like all affliction, it purified and sanctified. To Eric, as he
rested his aching head on a pillow wet with tears, and vainly sought for
the sleep whose blessing he had never learned to prize before, how
odious seemed all the vice which he had seen and partaken in since he
became an inmate of that little room. How his soul revolted with
infinite disgust from the language which he had heard, and the open
glorying in sin of which he had so often been a witness. The stain and
the shame of sin fell heavier than ever on his heart; it rode on his
breast like a nightmare; it haunted his fancy with visions of guilty
memory, and shapes of horrible regret. The ghosts of bu