That same night toward morning Henry suddenly awoke from a sound sleep.
Drowsiness, by some strange influence, had been completely banished from
his eyes, and in its stead he became sensible of a profound depression of
spirits. Physically, he was entirely comfortable, nor could he trace to
any sensation from without either this sudden awakening or the mental
condition in which he found himself. It was not that he thought of
anything in particular that was gloomy or discouraging, but that all the
ends and aims, not only of his own individual life, but of life in
general, had assumed an aspect so empty, vain, and colourless, that he
felt he would not rise from his bed for anything existence had to offer.
He recalled his usual frame of mind, in which these things seemed
attractive, with a dull wonderment that so baseless a delusion should be
so strong and so general. He wondered if it were possible that it should
ever again come over him.
The cold, grey light of earliest morning, that light which is rather the
fading of night than the coming of day, filled the room with a faint hue,
more cheerless than pitchiest darkness. A distant bell, with slow and
heavy strokes, struck three. It was the dead point in the daily
revolution of the earth's life, that point just before dawn, when men
oftenest die; when surely, but for the force of momentum, the course of
nature would stop, and at which doubtless it will one day pause
eternally, when the clock is run down. The long-drawn reverberations of
the bell, turning remoteness into music, full of the pathos of a sad and
infinite patience, died away with an effect unspeakably dreary. His
spirit, drawn forth after the vanishing vibrations, seemed to traverse
waste spaces without beginning or ending, and aeons of monotonous
duration. A sense of utter loneliness--loneliness inevitable, crushing,
eternal, the loneliness of existence, encompassed by the infinite void of
unconsciousness--enfolded him as a pall. Life lay like an incubus on his
bosom. He shuddered at the thought that death might overlook him, and
deny him its refuge. Even Madeline's face, as he conjured it up, seemed
wan and pale, moving to unutterable pity, powerless to cheer, and all the
illusions and passions of love were dim as ball-room candles in the grey
light of dawn.
Gradually the moon passed, and he slept again.
As early as half-past eight the following forenoon, groups of men with
very serious faces were to be seen standing at the corners of the
streets, conversing in hushed tones, and women with awed voices were
talking across the fences which divided adjoining yards. Even the
children, as they went to school, forgot to play, and talked in whispers
together, or lingered near the groups of men to catch a word or two of
their conversation, or, maybe, walked silently along with a puzzled,
solemn look upon their bright faces.
For a tragedy had occurred at dead of night which never had been
paralleled in the history of the village. That morning the sun, as it
peered through the closed shutters of an upper chamber, had relieved the
darkness of a thing it had been afraid of. George Bayley sat there in a
chair, his head sunk on his breast, a small, blue hole in his temple,
whence a drop or two of blood had oozed, quite dead.
This, then, was what he meant when he said that he had made arrangements
for leaving the village. The doctor thought that the fatal shot must have
been fired about three o'clock that morning, and, when Henry heard this,
he knew that it was the breath of the angel of death as he flew by that
had chilled the genial current in his veins.
Bayley's family lived elsewhere, and his father, a stern, cold,
haughty-looking man, was the only relative present at the funeral. When
Mr. Lewis undertook to tell him, for his comfort, that there was reason
to believe that George was out of his head when he took his life, Mr.
Bayley interrupted him.
"Don't say that," he said. "He knew what he was doing. I should not wish
any one to think otherwise. I am prouder of him than I had ever expected
to be again."
A choir of girls with glistening eyes sang sweet, sad songs at the
funeral, songs which, while they lasted, took away the ache of
bereavement, like a cool sponge pressed upon a smarting spot. It seemed
almost cruel that they must ever cease. And, after the funeral, the young
men and girls who had known George, not feeling like returning that day
to their ordinary thoughts and occupations, gathered at the house of one
of them and passed the hours till dusk, talking tenderly of the departed,
and recalling his generous traits and gracious ways.
The funeral had taken place on the day fixed for the picnic. The latter,
in consideration of the saddened temper of the young people, was put off
a fortnight.