“There he is,” said Valentine, in his usual tone of voice.

“Who is?” asked Brandon.

“My father—­don’t you see him walking among the trees?  He came to see my uncle—­I told you so!”

Brandon was inexpressibly startled.  He leaned neared, and looked into Valentine’s wide-open eyes, in which was no sign of fear or wonder.

“Why, you are half asleep, you have been dreaming,” he presently said, in a reassuring tone.  “Wake up, now; see how fast the morning dawns.”

Valentine made him no answer, but he looked as usual.  There was nothing to bespeak increased illness till he spoke again, faintly and fast—­“Dorothea—­did he bring Dorothea?”

Giles then perceived with alarm that he was not conscious of his presence—­took no notice of his answer.  He leaned down with sudden and eager affright, and heard Valentine murmur—­“I thought he would have let me kiss her once before I went away.”

Brandon started from his knees by Valentine’s bed as this last faint utterance reached him, and rushed up-stairs to his wife’s room with all the speed he could command.

Oh, so fast asleep! her long hair loose on the pillow.  How fair she looked, and how serene, in her dimpled, child-like beauty!

“Love, love!—­wake up, love!  I want you, Dorothea.”

She opened her startled eyes, and turned with a mother’s instinct to glance at her little child, who was asleep beside her, looking scarcely more innocent than herself.

“Love, make haste!  Valentine is very ill.  I want you to come to him.  Where’s your dressing-gown?—­why here.  Are you awake now?  What is it, do you ask?  Oh, I cannot tell—­but I fear, I fear.”

He rushed down-stairs again, and was supporting Valentine’s head with his arm when Dorothea appeared, and stopped for one instant in the doorway, arrested by some solemn words.  Could it be Valentine that spoke?  There was a change in his voice that startled her, and as she came on her face was full of tender and awe-struck wonder.

“The fulness of Him,” he said, “that filleth all in all.”

Brandon looked up, and in the solemn dawn beheld her advancing in her long white drapery, and with her fair hair falling about her face.  She looked like one of those angels that men behold in their dreams.

Valentine’s eyes were slowly closing.

“Kiss him, my life!” said Brandon, and she came on, and kneeling beside him put her sweet mouth to his.

Valentine did not have that kiss!