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Show 220 Gentle illlnf&tt\! Gllll 11lose anll Stiller His life stretched out before him in a waste of empty years. He was thirty, now, and his father had lived until well past seventy; might have lived many years more had he not died when his heart broke over the misfortunes of his idolised son. He could remember the rumble of the carriage wheels the night of the funeral. The nurse had dozed in her chair just as she was dozing now, while downstairs they carried his father out of the house in a black casket and buried him. It was all as clear as though it had happened yesterday, instead of ages ago. A clock, somewhere near by, chimed three quick, silvery strokes. With the last stroke, the clock in the kitchen struck three, also, in a different tone and with an annoying briskness of manner. As the echo died away, the old grandfather's clock on the landing boomed out three portentously solemn chimes. It was followed almost immediately by a cheery, impertinent little clock, insisting that it was four and almost time for sunrise. The nurse stirred in her chair, yawned, and came over to the bed. She straightened the blankets with a practised hand, changed his hot pillow for a fresh one, brought him a drink of cool water, and went back to her chair without having said a word. The gentle ministry com~ forted him insensibly. What magic there was in the touch of a woman's hand ! But, in the " bow Sbe 'Wltll <tome to roe " •" long grey years ahead, there would be no woman, unless-Isabel-- Sometime that afternoon, or early in the evening, she had received his note. It was not strange that they had not allowed her to come to see him, because no one had seen him but the doctors and nurses. Even Aunt Fran~ cesca, whom he had known all his life, had not darkened his open door. But now, Isabel would come-she could not help but come. With the passing of the fateful hour, strength began to return slowly. She would come to-morrow, and every tick of the clock brought to-morrow a second nearer. A steadily increasing warmth came into his veins and thawed the ice around his heart. The cold hand that had held it so long mercifully loosened its fingers. He turned his face toward the Eastern window, that he might watch for the first faint glow. A single long, deepening shadow struck across the far horizon like the turning out of a light. Almost immediately, the distant East brightened. Day was coming-the sun, and Isabel. With the first hint of colour, hope dawned in his soul changing to certainty as the light increased. ' It was not in the way of things that he, who had always had everything, should at one fell stroke be left desolate. -J)awnt |
