I am sure it will not be long.
I am suffering terribly, and the sooner it comes, the better." The ashy gray of the colonel's face sufficed to tell Lisle that the end was, indeed, near at hand.

The colonel only spoke two or three times and, at ten o'clock at night, passed away painlessly.
Upon Lisle devolved the sad work of arranging his funeral.

He wrote to the colonel's lawyer, asking him to come down.

Hallett had left the house at once, though Lisle earnestly begged him to stay till the funeral was over.

The lawyer arrived on the morning of the funeral.
"I have taken upon myself, sir," Lisle said, "to make all the arrangements for the funeral, seeing that there was no one else to do it." "You were the most proper person to do so," the lawyer said, gravely, "as you will see when the will is read, on our return from the grave." When all was over, Lisle asked two or three of the colonel's most intimate friends to be present at the reading of the will.