"Too late! too late!" the words haunted me there as the bright
sun struggled through the drawn blind and illumined her saintly face.
They and the look in her sweet eyes have haunted me many a day since
then, and would be with me yet, did I not believe she knows the truth
at last. There are too many ghosts in my memories for Heaven to
lightly add this one more.
She was dying--slowly and peacefully dying, and this was the end of
her waiting. He had returned at last, this husband for whose coming
she had watched so long. He had returned at last, after all his
labour, and had been laid at her feet a dead man. She was free to go
and join her love. To me, child as I was, this was sorely cruel.
Death, as I know now, is very merciful even when he seems most
merciless, but as I sat and watched the dear life slowly drift away
from me, it was a hard matter to understand.
The pale sunlight came, and flickered, and went; but she lay to all
seeming unchanged. Her pulse's beat was failing--failing; the broken
heart feebly struggling to its rest; but her sad eyes were still the
same, appealing, questioning, rebuking--all without hope of answer or
explanation.
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