Somehow, the days passed. Iris ate mechanically, and went about her
household duties with her former precision. On Wednesday evening, Doctor
Brinkerhoff came, as usual, and Margaret's eyes filled at the sight of
him.
Bent, old, and haggard, he came up the path, longing for his accustomed
place in the house, and yet dreading to take it. Iris met him with a
pitiful little smile, and he bowed over her hand for a moment, his
shoulders shaking. Then he straightened himself, like a soldier under
fire.
"Miss Iris," he said, "we are bound together by a common grief. More
than that, I have a trust to fulfil. She"--here he hesitated and then
went on--"she asked me if I would not try to take the place of a father
to you, and I promised that I would."
"I have always felt so toward you," answered Iris, in a low tone.
Lynn was quite himself again, and his cheerful talk enlivened the
others, almost against their will. There was laughter and to spare, yet
beneath it was an undercurrent of sorrow, for the wound was healed only
upon the surface.
"It is hard," said the Doctor, sadly, "but life holds many hard things
for all of us. Perhaps, if we lived rightly, if our faith were stronger,
death would not rend our hearts as it does. It is the common lot, the
universal leveller, and soon or late it comes to us all. It remains to
make our spiritual adjustment accord with the inevitable fact. There is
so little that we can change, that it behooves us to confine our efforts
to ourselves."
"Life," replied Lynn "is the pitch of the orchestra, and we are the
instruments."
Doctor Brinkerhoff nodded. "Very true. The discord and the broken string
of the individual instrument do not affect the whole, except as false
notes, but I think that God, knowing all things, must discern the
symphony, glorious with meaning, through the discordant fragments that
we play."
So the talk went on, Lynn taking the burden of it and endeavouring
always to make it cheerful. Margaret understood and loved him for it,
but she, too, was sad. Iris sat like a stone, waiting, counting off the
leaden hours as something to be endured, and blindly believing that rest
would come.
"Everything," said Margaret, after a long silence, "was as beautiful as
it could be."
Doctor Brinkerhoff understood at once. "Yes," he sighed, "and I am glad.
I think it was as she would have wished it to be, and I am sure she was
pleased because I shielded her from the gaze of the curious at the end."
His face worked as he said it, but he took a pitiful pride in what he
had done. Day by day he hugged this last service closer, because it was
done through his own thought and his own understanding, and would have
pleased her if she had known.
"Yes," returned Margaret, kindly, "it was very thoughtful of you. It
would never have occurred to me, and I know she would have been
grateful."
"Miss Iris?" said the Doctor, inquiringly.