"Have I really got to die, Rose?"
Her only answer was to kneel down and put her arms about him, as if she tried to keep death away a little longer. He believed it then, and lay so still, she looked up in a moment, fearing she knew not what.
But Charlie bore it manfully; for he had the courage which can face a great danger bravely, though not the strength to fight a bosom-sin and conquer it. His eyes were fixed, as if trying to look into the unseen world whither he was going, and his lips firmly set that no word of complaint should spoil the proof he meant to give that, though he had not known how to live, he did know how to die. It seemed to Rose as if for one brief instant she saw the man that might have been, if early training had taught him how to rule himself; and the first words he uttered with a long sigh, as his eye came back to her, showed that he felt the failure and owned it with pathetic candor.
"Better so, perhaps; better go before I bring any more sorrow to you, and shame to myself. I'd like to stay a little longer, and try to redeem the past; it seems so wasted now: but, if I can't, don't grieve, Rose; I'm no loss to any one, and perhaps it is too late to mend."
"Oh, don't say that! no one will fill your place among us: we never can forget how much we loved you; and you must believe how freely we forgive as we would be forgiven," cried Rose, steadied by the
