ALMOST LOST
THAT was the beginning of troublous times. For that day, and many
subsequent days, the angel of death hovered over the child. A fever had
seized upon her, and her little body became wasted and spent till she
was but a shadow of her former self. In her delirium, Robertson’s name
was constantly on her lips. He, poor fellow, could do nothing. From the
first day a nurse was installed in the sick-room, and no one was allowed
to enter.
It was on that day that I met, on my way to my office, one of
Robertson’s superiors in the bank. “By the way,” he said, “one of our
clerks boards where you do—Roland Robertson, his name is. Do you know
anything about him? Can you tell me anything in regard to his habits?”
“Very little,” I said hesitatingly. I knew that the man before me was a
model of all virtues, and had very little patience with youthful
follies. He spoke a few words in a disparaging way, and I knew that
Robertson’s careless habits were drawing suspicion upon him, and
endangering the remarkably good position he held. The thought flashed
into my mind, that perhaps it would be as well for little Daisy to die.
The shock of having been the indirect means of her death would sober the
lad her little lonely heart had clung to, and make a man of him for
life. God was going to take her from us. I pitied Robertson from the
bottom of my heart. He was going about the house with a set face which
assured me that he had not the slightest hope of the child’s recovery.
He never spoke to any one, and after the bank closed, came home and shut
himself up in his room. How he passed the time no one knew. One night, I
heard Mrs. Drummond come to his door, knock gently, and ask whether he
would like to come and say good-bye to Daisy. The doctor had said that
she would probably not live through the night, and the nurse thought
that now she was having the lucid interval which sometimes comes before
death—and she wanted to see him. I stole quietly out of my room,
Robertson stood in the hall, his hand on the door-handle, an expression
of terrible anguish on his face. Suddenly he composed his features, and
went toward the child’s room. I paused on the threshold. The room was
dimly lighted and as quiet as the grave. Between the windows, on her
mother’s large bed, the child lay—a little, frail, white ghost, her
skin deathly pale, and drawn very tightly over her bones, her beautiful,
dark eyes fixed languidly on Robertson. He stood at the foot of the bed,
his hands clasped around the iron bars with a kind of stony composure on
his face.
Daisy gave him a little, wistful smile. Her affection for him was as
strong as ever. The fever had not burnt it up, nor was it killed by the
pains that racked her tender body. Presently, she murmured a request
that he would come beside her. The nurse made room for him by the
pillow. He knelt down, clenching one hand in the white counterpane with
a vice-like grasp, and holding gently in the other the wasted fingers
that Daisy stole feebly toward him.
“Woland, dear boy,” she murmured, in a scarcely audible voice, “I’ve
been werry ill.”
His forehead contracted a little. “Yes, I know,” and his voice was very
soft and tender and had the sound of tears in it.
“But I’m better now. Mebbe I’ll get up in de mornin’.”
He looked at her. For one instant the rigid control in which he held
himself almost gave way. But he recovered himself and she went on
feebly: “Will you carry me down to breakfus’?” Then her eyes closed. She
seemed to be slipping away.
His face became like marble. The child was dying, and she did not know
it. He put his lips to her ear: “Daisy,” in an agonized voice, “this is
a sad world; wouldn’t you like to go and leave it?”
The child lifted her heavy lids. “Leave it,” she lisped.
“Yes, and go to heaven,” he ejaculated in a desperate, broken voice.
“where the Lord Jesus our Savour is. You will be very happy there. He
will give you a white robe and a golden harp, and you will have other
little children to play with you; and there will be beautiful fields and
flowers—”
“How werry nice,” half sighed, half breathed the exhausted child. A
sweet, almost seraphic smile, flitted over her little face. Then a doubt
assailed her. With a last, supreme effort, she tried to raise herself
and look in his face. “Are you comin’ too, Woland?”
A look of blank despair met her loving glance. Surprised and bewildered,
she shook off for an instant her coming lethargy. “Woland,” she said
sharply, “I sha’n’t go to heaven widout you.” Then she sank back on the
pillow—her eyes closed.
The frightful tension in which the lad held himself gave way. Her little
fingers slipped from his grasp, and he fell back, in a dead faint. It
did not disturb the little one however, and in a little time he was
himself again, and anxiously watching the coming of the end.