“Oh!  Thomas,” said his wife appealingly.  Then she went up to Mr. Hardcap, and laid her hand gently on his arm.  “Mr. Hardcap,” said she, “it was very good of you to call on us in our sorrow.  And I am sure that you want to comfort us, and do us good.  But I don’t believe my husband will get any good just now from what you have to say.  We are stunned by the blow that came so suddenly, and must have a little time to recover from it.  Would you feel offended if I asked you to go away and call again some other time?”

“The word must be spoken in season and out of season,” said Mr. Hardcap doggedly.  Nevertheless he turned to leave.  He offered his hand to Mr. Gear, who was leaning with his head upon his hand against the mantel-piece, and possibly did not notice the proffered salutation.  At all events he never moved.  Mr. Hardcap looked at him a moment, opened his mouth as if to speak, but apparently reconsidered his purpose, for he closed it again without speaking, and so left the room.  Mrs. Gear went with him to the door, where I heard her ask him to pray for her and for her husband, and where I heard him answer something about a sin unto death that could not be prayed for.  Jennie followed Mrs. Gear softly out; and so Mr. Gear and I were left alone.

Alone with the dead.

“That’s your Christian consolation,” said Mr. Gear bitterly.

“Is that just to your wife?” I answered him quietly.

“No!  It is not just to my wife,” he replied.  “I would give all I possess to have her faith.  She is almost heart-broken,—­and yet-yet-I who ought to sustain her would be crazed with grief if I had not her to lean upon.  And she-she leans on I know not what.  Oh! if I did but know.”

“She leans on Him who not in vain Experienced every human pain,” I answered softly.

“He was such a noble boy,” continued Mr. Gear speaking half to himself, and half to me.  “He was so pure, so truthful, so chivalrous, so considerate of his mother’s happiness and of mine.  And he was beginning to teach me, teach me that I did not know all.  I was afraid of my own philosophy for him.  I wanted him to have his mother’s faith, though I never told him so.  I never perplexed him with my own doubtings.  I solved what I could of his, I was coming to believe little by little that there was a clearer, better light than that I walked in.  I was hoping that he might find it and walk in it.  I even dreamed, sometimes, to myself, that he would yet learn how to show it to me.  And now he is gone, and the glimmer of light is gone, and the last hope for me is gone with him.”

“He is gone,” I said softly, “to walk in that clearer, better light, and beckons you to follow.”

Mr. Gear made no answer, hardly seemed to note the interruption.