"I should like to see Helen," he said suddenly, and he looked wistfully at his young nephew. "Do you think she could come?"
"I have already telegraphed to her," Teddie replied; "she could be here by about five o’clock, I think."
At about that time Helen arrived, eager to be of use, if only to help to comfort the last hours of the poor life that was slipping away. She sat by his bed and talked softly to him in her gentle, affectionate way, careful not to agitate or excite him, keeping all painful subjects from his thoughts. Once, despite her endeavours, he began to blame himself, and Helen was infinitely touched at the yearning and distress his eyes expressed, at the bitterness his words evinced, for the long years of estrangement from her and her children.
"Do not blame yourself too much," she said tenderly. "I, too, was wrong. I ought to have pushed my way into your heart and forced you to love me, instead of allowing you to shut me out. My only excuse, dear uncle, lies in the fact that I was poor and you were rich, and I shrank from the possible construction that might have been put upon my behaviour by others, had I seemed to force my friendship upon you. Now I see that such shrinking was morbid and selfish. So, dear uncle, don’t be troubled any more. We understand each other now, and freely do we forgive one another. Is it not so?"
He made no answer, but feebly returned the pressure of her hand.
"All is well with you," she murmured presently, as she noted the weary droop of his eyelids. "All is well and happy. We all love you. Think only of that—we all love you, we all love you."
She murmured the words again and again. They seemed to soothe the dying man, as a lullaby might soothe a little child, who had awakened, distressed, from a bad dream. His eyes closed, a tranquil expression spread over his worn features, and he sank into sleep, still grasping his niece’s hand.
From this childlike slumber he passed gradually, peacefully, into that sleep, the beatific happiness of whose dreams was already stamped upon the face, smoothing away all troubled lines, leaving a slight, strange smile upon the lips.
Thus the troublous life, that had somehow missed happiness, passed away to the keeping of Him who understands all things, so fully, so widely, so comprehensively, that in His eyes there remains but little to forgive: for such is the Divine Compassion.