What was to be done with such a superstition? Albinia did not think
it would be right to argue it away. It might be in truth a warning
to him to guard his ways--a voice from the twin-brother, to be with
him through life. She knelt down by him, and kissed his forehead.

'Dear Gilbert,' she said, 'we all shall die.'

'Yes, but I shall die young.'

'And if you should. Those are happy who die young. How much pain
your baby-brother and sisters have missed! How happy Edmund is now!'

'Then you really think it meant that I shall'' he cried, tremblingly.
'O don't! I can't die!'

'Your brother called on what he loved best,' said Albinia. 'It may
mean nothing. Or rather, it may mean that your dear twin-brother is
watching for you, I am sure he is, to have you with him, for what
makes your mortal life, however long, seem as nothing. It was a call
to you to be as pure on earth as he is in heaven. O Gilbert, how good
you should be!'

Gilbert did not know whether it frightened him or soothed him to see
his superstition treated with respect--neither denied, nor reasoned
away. But the ghastliness was not in the mere fear that death might
not be far off.

The pillow had turned a little on one side--Albinia tried to smooth
it--the corner of a book peeped out. It was a translation of The
Three Musqueteers, one of the worst and most fascinating of Dumas'