Pearl saw something of his fears in his face.  So she hastened to reassure him.  She said cheerfully: 

“Don’t ye be worried, Arthur, about it at all at all.  Man alive!  Dr. Clay thinks no more of an operation like that than I would o’ cuttin’ your nails.”

A strange feeling began at Arthur’s heart, and spread up to his brain.  It had come!  It was here!

   From lightning and tempest; from plague, pestilence
   and famine; from battle and murder and sudden
   death;—­Good Lord, deliver us!

He had prayed it many times, meaninglessly.  But he clung to it now, clung to it desperately.  As a drowning man.  He put his hand over his eyes, his pain was forgotten: 

   Other lights are paling—­which for long years we have
   rejoiced to see...we would not mourn them for we go
   to Thee!

Yes it was all right; he was ready now.  He had come of a race of men who feared not death in whatever form it came.

   Bring us to our resting beds at night—­weary and
   content and undishonoured—­and grant us in the end
   the gift of sleep.

He repeated the prayer to himself slowly.  That was it, weary and content, and undishonoured.

“Pearl,” he said, reaching out his burning hand until it rested on hers, “all my letters are there in that black portmanteau, and the key is in my pocket-book.  I have a fancy that I would like no eye but yours to see them—­ until I am quite well again.”

She nodded.

“And if you...should have need...to write to Thursa, tell her I had loving hands around me...at the last.”

Pearl gently stroked his hand.

“And to my father write that I knew no fear”—­his voice grew steadier—­“and passed out of life glad to have been a brave man’s son, and borne even for a few years a godly father’s name.”

“I will write it, Arthur,” she said.

“And to my mother, Pearl” his voice wavered and broke—­“my mother...for I was her youngest child...tell her she was my last...and tenderest thought.”

Pearl pressed his hand tenderly against her weather-beaten little cheek, for it was Danny now, grown a man but Danny still, who lay before her, fighting for his life; and at the thought her tears fell fast.

“Pearl,” he spoke again, after a pause, pressing his hand to his forehead, “while my mind holds clear, perhaps you would be good enough, you have been so good to me, to say that prayer you learned.  My father will be in his study now, and soon it will be time for morning prayers.  I often feel his blessing on me, Pearl.  I want to feel it now, bringing peace and rest...weary and content and undishonoured, and...undishonoured...and grant us...”  His voice grew fainter and trailed away into incoherency.