“From America?...I lived there many years...How desolate and monotonous were the shores I visited!...”

“Will you see your friend?”

“I am carried away by the current of the river.  In the distance I see dark and shadowy forms; there are hills full of shade and coolness...but I will never rest there.”

Hermann retired noiselessly, and returned almost immediately with
Ellen.

Warren, who had taken no notice of him, continued to follow the course of his wandering thoughts.

“The river is drawing near to the sea.  Already I can hear the roar of the waves...The banks are beginning to be clothed with verdure...The hills are drawing nearer....It is dark now.  Here are the big trees beneath which I have dreamed so often.  A radiant apparition shines through their foliage....It comes towards me...  Ellen!”

She was standing beside the bed.  The dying man saw her, and without showing the least surprise, said with a smile, “Thank God! you have come in time.  I knew you were coming.”

He murmured a few unintelligible words, and then remained silent for a long while.  His eyes were wide open.  Suddenly he cried, “Hermann!”

Hermann came and stood beside Ellen.

“The pendulum...You know what I mean?” A frank childish smile—­the smile of his student days—­lighted up his pallid face.  He raised his right hand, and tracing in the air with his forefinger a wide semicircle, to imitate the oscillation of a pendulum, he said, “Then.”  He then figured in the same manner a more limited and slower movement, and after repeating it several times, said, “Now.”  Lastly, he pointed straight before him with a motionless and almost menacing finger, and said with a weak voice, “Soon.”

He spoke no more, and closed his eyes.  The breathing was becoming very difficult.

Ellen bent, over him, and called him softly, “Henry, Henry!” He opened his eyes.  She brought her mouth close to his ear, and said, with a sob, “I have always loved you.”

“I knew it from the first,” he said, quietly and with confidence.

A gentle expression stole over his countenance, and life seemed to return.  Once more he had the confident look of youth.  A sad and beautiful smile played on his lips; he took the hand of Ellen in his, and kissed it gently.

“How do you feel now?” inquired Hermann.

The old answer, “Very well.”

His hands were plucking at the bedclothes, as if he strove to cover his face with them.  Then his arms stiffened and the fingers remained motionless.

“Very well,” he repeated.

He appeared to fall into deep thought.  There was a long pause.  At last he turned a dying look, fraught with tender pity and sadness, towards Ellen, and in a low voice, which was scarcely audible, he said these two words, with a slight emphasis on the first—­ “Perfectly well.”

THE BOOKBINDER OF HORT