ertainty indeed I have none. With regard to You and Me I cannot
begin to write; having nothing for it but to keep shut the lid of those
secrets with all the iron weights that are in my power. Towards me it is
still more true than towards England that no man has been and done like
you. Heaven bless you! If I can lend a hand when THERE, that will not be
wanting. It is all very strange, but not one hundredth part so sad as it
seems to the standers-by.

"Your Wife knows my mind towards her, and will believe it without
asseverations.

"Yours to the last,
"JOHN STERLING."

It was a bright Sunday morning when this letter came to me: if in the
great Cathedral of Immensity I did no worship that day, the fault surely
was my own. Sterling affectionately refused to see me; which also was
kind and wise. And four days before his death, there are some stanzas of
verse for me, written as if in star-fire and immortal tears; which are
among my sacred possessions, to be kept for myself alone.

His business with the world was done; the one business now to await
silently what may lie in other grander worlds. "God is great," he was
wont to say: "God is great." The Maurices were now constantly near him;
Mrs. Maurice assiduously watching over him. On the evening of Wednesday
the 18th of September, his Brother, as he did every two or three days,
came down; found him in the old temper, weak in strength but not very
sensibly weaker; they talked calmly together for an hour; then Anthony
left his bedside, and retired for the night, not expecting any change.
But suddenly, about eleven o'clock, there came a summons and alarm:
hurrying to his Brother's room, he found his Brother dying; and in
a short while more the faint last struggle was ended, and all those
struggles and strenuous often-foiled endeavors of eight-and-thirty years
lay hushed in death.

CHAPTER VII. CONCLUSION.

Sterling was of rather slim but well-boned wiry figure, perhaps an inch
or two from six feet in height; of blonde complexion, without color, yet
not pale or sickly; dark-blonde hair, copious enough, which he usually
wore short. The general aspect of him indicated freedom, perfect
spontaneity, with a certain careless natural grace. In his apparel, you
could notice, he affected dim colors, easy shapes; cleanly always, yet
even in this not fastidious or conspicuous: he sat or stood, oftenest,