He died quite peacefully about an hour ago. I’ve just been to gather some flowers to put in his room.
Oh, Mrs. Wharton, I’m so sorry. I’m so dreadfully sorry for you.
[_Patting her hand._] Thank you, my dear; you’ve been very kind to us during these days.
I think he must have gone out for a walk. I went to his room a little while ago and he wasn’t there. He wanted to sit up with me last night, but I wouldn’t let him.
But ... but doesn’t John know his father is dead?
I had no idea the end was so near. George wanted to be alone with me, Sylvia. We’d been married for thirty-five years, you see. He was conscious almost to the last. He died quite suddenly, like a child going to sleep.
It’s such a terrible loss. You poor dear, you must be quite heart-broken.
It’s a very great loss, but I’m not heart-broken. George is happy and at rest. We should be very poor Christians if the death of those we love made us unhappy. George has entered into eternal life.
Oh, Mrs. Wharton, what a blessed thing it is to have a faith like yours.
My dear, a very wonderful thing happened last night. I can’t feel grief for dear George’s death because of the recollection of that. I feel so strange. I feel as though I were walking in an enchanted garden.
Since that day when George refused to talk with the Vicar I never dared mention the subject. He was not himself. It made me so unhappy. And then last night, soon after Dr. Macfarlane went away, he asked of his own accord for Mr. Poole. The Vicar’s a dear, kind man. He’d said to me that if ever George asked for him he’d come at once, at any hour of the day or night. So I sent for him. He gave George the Holy Sacrament. And Sylvia, a miracle happened.
No sooner had the bread and the wine touched his lips than he was transfigured. All his--his anxiety left him, and he was once more his dear, good, brave self. He was quite happy to die. It was as though an unseen hand had pulled back a dark curtain of clouds and he saw before him, not night and a black coldness, but a path of golden sunshine that led straight to the arms of God.
The Vicar read the prayers for the dying and then he left us. We talked of the past and of our reunion in a little while. And then he died.