opened the window to the universal horror. I intimated the death scene was postponed, and, as a matter of fact, my uncle did not die until the next night.
I did not let the little clergyman come near him again, and I was watchful for any sign that his mind had been troubled. But he made none. He talked once about "that parson chap."
"Didn't bother you?" I asked.
"Wanted something," he said.
I kept silence, listening keenly to his mutterings. I understood him to say, "they wanted too much." His face puckered like a child's going to cry. "You can't get a safe six per cent.," he said. I had for a moment a wild suspicion that those urgent talks had not been altogether spiritual, but that, I think, was a quite unworthy and unjust suspicion. The little clergyman was as simple and honest as the day. My uncle was simply generalizing about his class.
But it may have been these talks that set loose some long dormant string of ideas in my uncle's brain, ideas the things of this world had long suppressed and hidden altogether. Near the end he suddenly became clear-minded and lucid, albeit very weak, and his voice was little, but clear.
"George," he said.
"I'm here," I said, "close beside you."
"George. You have always been responsible for the science. George. You know better than I do. Is. Is it proved?"
"What proved?"
"Either way?"
"I don't understand."
"Death ends all. After so much. Such splendid beginnings. Somewhere. Something."
