The young man hesitated; they spoke a moment; it was so arranged. Chas
was tipping away from her down the well of the stairs.
And she and the clergyman were walking up the corridor, his hand at her
elbow, to the door with the white letters on it.
As Mr. Dayne's hand touched the knob, she spoke again, very low.
"Is he.... Is he--much ...?"
"No," said Mr. Dayne, "the injuries were internal. There's hardly a
mark...."
So, opening the door softly, he left her.
And she was within, the door a step or two behind her, in front a long
space, drawn blinds, and the indistinguishable twilight. Somewhere
before her was the mortal man who had pledged her one day that he would
prove his friendship with his life.
And how came she here; by what right?
She had perceived remotely that she was not alone. Out of the dim great
stretches there emerged advancing a little figure, black-clad; advancing
silent, with lowered head. Drawing near, she did not look up, did not
speak: she was merely fading from the room.
The figure was vaguely apprehended, as one upon another planet. But
Cally, stirring slightly as she slipped past, made a movement with her
hand and said, just audibly:
"Don't go."
The girl must have paused. There came a tiny voice:
"Yes, ma'am. I'll ... just step out." And then, yet fainter: "I was
wishin' you'd come, ma'am."
It was the stillness of the world's last Sabbath. Gathering dusk was
here, and mortal fear. Her limbs ran to marble. There came again the
lifeless whisper.
"Don't be afraid, ma'am.... He looks so beautiful."
The understanding speech, the voice, seemed to penetrate her
consciousness. Her eyes drew out of the dusk, turned upon the small
figure at her side: the little girl he had been fond of, her father's
three years' buncher. And then she heard herself breathing
suddenly, faintly:
"Ah!... You poor, poor child!..."
And her heart, which had been quite dead, was suddenly alive and
twisting within her....
She had been engulfed in her own abyss. Tragedy was on every side,
horrors pouring in, swamping her being. Feeling had drowned in the icy
void. Not Hen's tears had touched her, not her father's stricken grief.
But when her eyes came upon this small face, something written there
pierced her through and through. Such a shocking little face it was, so
pinched with no hope of tears....
In the darkness of the shuttered office, two stood near who were worlds
apart. And, for the first time since she had looked down from her window
at home, Cally was lifted out of herself....
"I--you must let me see you--in a day or two, won't you?" she said
hurriedly, below her breath. "I should like so much ... to help you, if
I could...."
A quiver went over the little mask; but the girl spoke in the same stony
way:
"Oh, ma'am ... it's so kind.... I'll go now."
But the hollowness of Cally's speech had mocked the sudden sympathy
upwelling within her. Her arm was upon the work-girl's frail shoulder;
her indistinct voice suddenly tremulous.
"Don't think I imagine that any one can ever replace.... You must know I
understand ... what your loss is."
Kern shrunk against the wall by the door. No moment this, to speak of
what had so long been hid.
"He was like a father to me, ma'am, an' more...."
And then, as if to prove that she claimed no right at all in this room,
as if all depended on her establishing finally the humble and spiritual
nature of her regard, she breathed what in happier days had been close
to her heart:
"He was teaching me to be a lady...."
Who shall say how marvels befall, and the dearest dream comes true? Was
it the pitifulness of the little hope laid bare? Or the secret shrinking
behind that, but surprised at last? Or was it the knowledge of a
beautiful delicacy shown by this little girl before to-day?
Miss Heth's arm was about her neck, and her voice, which was so pretty
even when you could hardly hear it, said, true as true:
"I think you've been a lady all along, Co-rinne."
And then the bands about Kern's heart snapped, and she could cry....
The storm came suddenly, like the bursting of a dam. A bad time
certainly; it was hard to be torn so, yet to make no cry or sound; in
any case, distressing to others. And surely salt water couldn't be good
for this lovely cloth, where her face lay....
Yet one doesn't think overmuch of things like that, when the barriers on
the great common go toppling down. And there was Sisterhood there all
the time....
And above the stillness and the racking, Kern heard his beautiful lady's
voice once more, speaking to her own heart now, so low, oh, so broken:
"_Ah, but he was teaching me_...."
And then Kern must go quickly, lest she disgrace herself forever;
screaming aloud as she had heard women who were not ladies....
The girl was gone, her head between her hands. And Cally Heth stood
alone in the more than churchly stillness.
She was breaking up within. The drowned being stirred to life, with
multiplying pains. And yet, in giving comfort, she had mysteriously
taken it. There came to her a fortitude that was not of death.
* * * * *
No sound penetrated to the silent waiting-room.
The two men there spoke little. They had talked what they had to say.
Sam O'Neill looked at his watch; it was twenty-five minutes to six. And,
a moment later, Director Pond came up the steps, entered and said:
"Bloom will be here at six o'clock."
They spoke briefly of this. The friends of the neighborhood were to be
admitted; it was agreed that this should be arranged for to-morrow
morning. Pond then said:
"Is Miss Heth in there?"
Mr. Dayne said that she was. And Sam O'Neill, who had not known who the
visitor was, first looked startled and then lapsed off into heavy
musings....
The Director sat down on a chair by the door. His strong face looked
tired.
"Won't you, a little later," he said to Mr. Dayne, "go down and say a
few words to the people outside? They'd appreciate it."
The parson, biting his crisp mustache, said that he would.
Pond sat absently eyeing the pile of men's clothes beside him; and after
a time he asked what they were there for. Mr. Dayne seemed less and less
disposed for conversation. So it was Sam who told, in a somewhat halting
fashion, of the coming of the crows....
Pond, whom no one could have taken for a sentimentalist, made no comment
whatever. Presently he felt Mr. Dayne's eye upon him.
"Well, would it work out, do you think?"
The Director shook his head slightly, disclaiming authority. But after a
time he said:
"Not as long as men'll try it only once every two thousand years."
The parson's eyes dreamed off.
"He believed in miracles. And so they were always happening to him....
Oh, it's all so simple when you stop to think."
Then there was silence and the creeping twilight. Sam O'Neill stood
picking at a splotch on the ancient plaster, with strong, yellow-gloved
hands. Mr. Dayne walked about, his arms crossed behind him. Upon Pond
there came a sort of restlessness.