then, O God, my children, my children! Leave me, leave me !-I am dying; yes, dying!" "She is wandering," said the nurse. And Giles retired to the opposite corner of the room, and covered his face with his hands. T 206 CHAPTER XIV. IN WHICH IS SHOWN HOW DR. CAFFYN'S STRONG men are frequently misjudged. We think them cold, icy, indifferent, and shrink from them half in pity and half in admiration, knowing not that beneath their stately unruffled composure there is commonly a tender and profound susceptibility, a warm and generous life, as the sunset clouds tremble to noiseless winds in their serenest balancings, and the baldest stoniest hills run down with singing burns and have hearts of precious gold. Giles Newbury was not a creature of emotion and tears, easily touched by trivialities, or moved to shows of sentiment upon conveniently-dramatic occasions. He was yet tender-hearted and loving as a child, and when surprised by circumstances into an unconscious disclosure of himself, or thrown by the force of his own energies into situations where every accidental investiture was ruthlessly stripped away, his sensibilities were touched and quickened, and his large human heart gushed out into sublime sorrow, heroic tenderness, or compassionate love. It was so now. He had had news of one as good as dead, and Stephen's own brother had released him from prison, having obtained the warranty through the influence of an eminent Commoner whose life he had saved in the confusions of the plague. He was once more beneath his own roof-tree, and around him were familiar mementos of happiness and love. And still, who would not have wept? Better a thousand times to have remained in prison, he thought, if that could have prevented what he now mourned. And then his grief gushed out wild and inconsolable. A thrill of poignant love ran with it, for it was her devotion unto him, her weary waitings and watchings, that had laid her open to disease. Could he spare her now after this sublime trust and self-sacrifice? He dared not answer his own thoughts, but looked up on her as she lay there tossing and moaning, beseeching and imploring that he would leave her, and uttering broken prayers and gasping plaints for the dear ones for whom she was now willing to die. O the love and the sorrow that make their life and home in these hearts of ours, enriching and rending, blessing and blasting, softening and subliming-what a full heaven of mystery, what a solemn hush of eternity do they open and distil about us! Who can hold them, resist them, analyze them, or interpret them? Intellect is baffled, speculation is thrown back, blinded and wing-broken, and Faith, only faith, catches the whispering hints they bring of the future and the far-away, crooning to herself a simple-hearted song amid the glare of fiery consummations and the crash of hurtling storms! The very moment the plague spots appeared upon his person, Lathwell thought it was all over with him: he would have no help and he needed none. It was impious, he said, to run counter to the decrees of unerring Wisdom and universal Power. Had not wonder after wonder, in recent events, plainly foretold what was coming upon him? Did not each succeeding aspect of affairs appear stranger and yet plainer ? Was there not a Providence moving amidst human affairs, and was it not cognisable ? Had he not recently felt many new impulsions, deeper sympathies, swifter thoughts? Nay, had he not been tempted, confounded, bewildered? Such things could only be read by an intelligent observer in one way: he had so read them and was prepared. The Plague soon made rapid inroads upon him, and every bounding pulse that shook his frame, and, as with fiery waves, erased faculty after faculty of his mind, seemed about to bear him away in an overwhelming tide. He left a few hasty messages, and having already arranged his affairs, he solemnly and hopefully sank into the stillness of the grave. It was his corpse that Giles had seen borne out as he passed by to enter his own house, guessing well all that had taken place. When the first gush of his great grief was over, Giles calmly viewed the situation in |