the
altar of his youth to the beautiful Camilla Rolfe, and she had
chosen between him and the millionaire. The Bishop carried no
bitterness with his memory; but it was still a memory.

For answer to the Bishop's unfinished query, Felicia turned and went
back into her mother's room. She had not said a word yet, but both
men were struck with her wonderful calm. She returned to the hall
door and beckoned to them, and the two ministers, with a feeling
that they were about to behold something very unusual, entered.

Rose lay with her arms outstretched upon the bed. Clara, the nurse,
sat with her head covered, sobbing in spasms of terror. And Mrs.
Sterling with "the light that never was on sea or land" luminous on
her face, lay there so still that even the Bishop was deceived at
first. Then, as the great truth broke upon him and Dr. Bruce, he
staggered, and the sharp agony of the old wound shot through him. It
passed, and left him standing there in that chamber of death with
the eternal calmness and strength that the children of God have a
right to possess. And right well he used that calmness and strength
in the days that followed.

The next moment the house below was in a tumult. Almost at the same
time the doctor who had been sent for at once, but lived some
distance away, came in, together with police officers, who had been
summoned by frightened servants. With them were four or five
newspaper correspondents and several neighbors. Dr. Bruce and the
Bishop met this miscellaneous crowd at the head of the stairs and
succeeded in excluding all except those whose presence was
necessary. With these the two friends learned all the facts ever
known about the "Sterling tragedy," as the papers in their
sensational accounts next day called it.

Mr. Sterling had gone into his room that evening about nine o'clock
and that was the last seen of him until, in half an hour, a shot was
heard in the room, and a servant who was in the hall ran into the
room and found him dead on the floor, killed by his own hand.
Felicia at the time was sitting by her mother. Rose was reading in
the library. She ran upstairs, saw her father as he was being lifted
upon the couch by the servants, and then ran screaming into her
mother's room, where she flung herself down at the foot of the bed
in a swoon. Mrs. Sterling had at first fainted at the shock, then
rallied with a wonderful swiftness and sent for Dr. Bruce. She had
then insisted on seeing her hu