第195章

Mr. Carlyle sat down on the bed and kissed him. The passing beams of the sun, slanting from the horizon, shone into the room, and Mr. Carlyle could view well the dying face. The gray hue of death was certainly on it.

"Is he worse?" he exclaimed hastily, to Madame Vine, who was jacketed, and capped, and spectacled, and tied up round the throat, and otherwise disguised, in her universal fashion.

"He appears worse this evening, sir--more weak."

"Papa," panted William, "is the trial over?"

"What trial, my boy?"

"Sir Francis Levison's."

"It was over yesterday. Never trouble your head about him, my brave boy, he is not worth it."

"But I want to know. Will they hang him?"

"He is sentenced to it."

"Did he kill Hallijohn?"

"Yes. Who has been talking to him upon the subject?" Mr. Carlyle continued to Madame Vine, with marked displeasure in his tone.

"Wilson mentioned it, sir," was the low answer.

"Oh, papa! What will he do? Will Jesus forgive /him/?"

"We must hope it."

"Do you hope it, papa?"

"Yes. I wish that all the world may be forgiven, William, whatever may have been their sins. My child, how restless you seem!"

"I can't keep in one place; the bed gets wrong. Pull me up on the pillow, will you Madame Vine?"

Mr. Carlyle gently lifted the boy himself.

"Madame Vine is an untiring nurse to you, William," he observed, gratefully casting a glance toward her in the distance, where she had retreated, and was shaded by the window curtain.

William made no reply; he seemed to be trying to recall something. "I forget! I forget!"

"Forget what?" asked Mr. Carlyle.

"It was something I wanted to ask you, or to tell you. Isn't Lucy come home?"

"I suppose not."

"Papa, I want Joyce."

"I will send her home to you. I am going for your mamma after dinner."

"For mamma?--oh, I remember now. Papa, how shall I know mamma in Heaven? Not this mamma."

Mr. Carlyle did not immediately reply. The question may have puzzled him. William continued hastily; possibly mistaking the motive of the silence.

"She /will/ be in Heaven, you know."

"Yes, yes, child," speaking hurriedly.

"Madame Vine knows she will. She saw her abroad; and mamma told her that--what was it, madame?"

Madame Vine grew sick with alarm. Mr. Carlyle turned his eyes upon her scarlet face--as much as he could get to see of it. She would have escaped from the room if she could.

"Mamma was more sorry than she could bear," went on William, finding he was not helped. "She wanted you, papa, and she wanted us, and her heart broke, and she died."

A flush rose to Mr. Carlyle's brow. He turned inquiringly to Madame Vine.

"Oh, I beg your pardon, sir," she murmured, with desperate energy. "I ought not to have spoken; I ought not to have interfered in your family affairs. I spoke only as I thought it must be, sir. The boy seemed troubled about his mother."

Mr. Carlyle was at sea. "Did you meet his mother abroad? I scarcely understand."

She lifted her hand and covered her glowing face. "No, sir." Surely the recording angel blotted out the words! If ever a prayer for forgiveness went up from an aching heart, it must have gone up then, for the equivocation over her child's death-bed!

Mr. Carlyle went toward her. "Do you perceive the change in his countenance?" he whispered.

"Yes, sir. He has looked like this since a strange fit of trembling that came on in the afternoon. Wilson thought he might be taken for death. I fear that some four and twenty hours will end it."

Mr. Carlyle rested his elbow on the window frame, and his hand upon his brow, his drooping eyelids falling over his eyes. "It is hard to lose him."

"Oh, sir, he will be better off!" she wailed, choking down the sobs and the emotion that arose threateningly. "We /can/ bear death; it is not the worst parting that the earth knows. He will be quit of this cruel world, sheltered in Heaven. I wish we were all there!"

A servant came to say that Mr. Carlyle's dinner was served, and he proceeded to it with what appetite he had. When he returned to the sick room the daylight had faded, and a solitary candle was placed where its rays could not fall upon the child's face. Mr. Carlyle took the light in his hand to scan that face again. He was lying sideways on the pillow, his hollow breath echoing through the room. The light caused him to open his eyes.

"Don't, papa, please. I like it dark."

"Only for a moment, my precious boy." And not for more than a moment did Mr. Carlyle hold it. The blue, pinched, ghastly look was there yet. Death was certainly coming on quick.

At that moment Lucy and Archibald came in, on their return from their visit to Miss Carlyle. The dying boy looked up eagerly.

"Good-bye, Lucy," he said, putting out his cold, damp hand.

"I am not going out," replied Lucy. "We have but just come home."

"Good-bye, Lucy," repeated he.

She laid hold of the little hand then, leaned over, and kissed him.

"Good-bye, William; but indeed I am not going out anywhere."

"I am," said he. "I am going to Heaven. Where's Archie?"

Mr. Carlyle lifted Archie on to the bed. Lucy looked frightened, Archie surprised.

"Archie, good-bye; good-bye, dear, I am going to Heaven; to that bright, blue sky, you know. I shall see mamma there, and I'll tell her that you and Lucy are coming soon."

Lucy, a sensitive child, broke into a loud storm of sobs, enough to disturb the equanimity of any sober sick room. Wilson hastened in at the sound, and Mr. Carlyle sent the two children away, with soothing promises that they should see William in the morning, if he continued well enough.

Down on her knees, her face buried in the counterpane, a corner of it stuffed into her mouth that it might help to stifle her agony, knelt Lady Isabel. The moment's excitement was well nigh beyond her strength of endurance. Her own child--his child--they alone around its death-bed, and she might not ask or receive a word of comfort, of consolation!