nine o'clock
She had never thought any one could look so touchingly beautiful as he did , when death was near . When he lay still and smiled , it was as though he were thinking of a tryst he should go to , as soon as he had done with us here on earth . One evening he asked my wife to sit with him . At nine o'clock a message came for me ; but when I got there , he was gone . He had asked my wife to read to him , for the first time , a part of Solomon 's Song , where she found an old mark in his Bible . It was the second chapter , in which both the bride and the bridegroom speak , and which begins : `` I am the rose of Sharon , and the lily of the valley '' ; and ends : `` Until the day break , and the shadows flee away , turn , my beloved , and be thou like a roe or a young hart upon the mountains of Bether . '' He had asked her to read it a second time , but during the reading he had quietly fallen asleep .