Chapter XIII: Part 13

There was a still longer pause after this, a still longer wait for a slow wandering breeze to bring the needed breath.

"Dear John," Miss Judy murmured, when she could speak again, "he must not know--till the note is paid. He doesn't quite realize what is due our father. You must overlook it, sister Sophia. He means only to be kind--so, so kind."

"Just so, sister Judy," replied poor Miss Sophia, through the habit of a long lifetime, not knowing what she said.

"Dear John. Dear John," Miss Judy said again, hardly louder than her fluttering breath.

There was a slight movement of her hand, and although the nerveless, cold little fingers fell powerless on the old blue quilt, the girl who hung over her knew what the movement meant. Doris understood that Miss Judy wished to have the judge's letter read to her again; but before it could be drawn from beneath the pillow the blue eyes were closed, and Miss Judy seemed softly to fall asleep. In the deep silence which followed the shadowed room was filled with the hushed hum of the voices of the people waiting outside.

It seemed to the watchers a long time before Miss Judy's blue eyes opened gently, yet suddenly and with a clearer look. It was a look quite like her old sweet self. There was in it even a fleeting expression almost like her old innocent artfulness.

"I hope you won't mind--the--trouble," she said, going on after a long pause, after waiting for her reluctant breath to return; after waiting for her true heart to beat once more. "I--should like--you--to--to consult Doris--often."

The blue eyes wandered from the young man's face to the golden head bowed at the bedside. At least the young man thought so, but his own eyes were very dim, his own heart was beating very, very fast, and he could not see very clearly.

"I will do all that you wish, as nearly as I can," he said tremulously. "But--dear Miss Judy, have you considered? This is your sister's home--all that she has in the world."

Miss Judy's little hand tried to creep toward her sister's, but its strength failing Doris tenderly took it in hers and laid it on Miss Sophia's. Yet even then, when it had grown cold--with the coldness that never passes, and had become weak with the weakness that can never gain strength--it made a slight protecting movement.

"Sister Sophia--isn't--willing--to keep what is--not--our own. And Doris--"

There now followed so long a pause that Doris, who had been quiet and calm in her self-control up to this moment, thought it too late for her grief to disturb Miss Judy--believed it to be time to say quickly what she wished to say, if Miss Judy ever were to hear--and, dropping all guard, she burst into a passion of protest and weeping.

"Oh, you do believe that I can do what I have promised, dear, dear Miss Judy. You surely believe that I can do what I have promised!" she cried. "It would break my heart to think that you doubted. I don't know how I can do it, but I will--I will--I will--somehow. I will take care of Miss Sophia--always--I will work so hard. There must be work--somewhere, for me to do. Whatever I can make shall be hers. Anyway, our home is hers. I will try to be as good to her--as you have been to me."

"I do believe--my child," the faint and distant but sweet and loving voice said quite distinctly, and then, after one of the long, fluttering pauses, "but--you must let--Lynn--advise you."

"Oh, if Doris only would--if you only could persuade her," Lynn cried.

He fell on his knees beside the slender bowed figure, and laid his trembling hand on the golden head which rested now, shaken by sobbing, on the pillow close to the silver head that lay so quiet. He made no further vain effort to restrain a man's rare, reluctant tears, nor to steady his broken voice.

"If you will ask Doris--maybe she can forgive me--for what I never meant to do--for what I did not know I was doing--till too late. Won't you ask?" he implored. "Dear, dear Miss Judy, she can refuse nothing--not even that--to you. And I love her so--with all my heart and soul and mind and strength. Won't you ask her to let me help her in caring for Miss Sophia--then all would be well; then there need be no more trouble. Can't you speak, dear Miss Judy? Just one word. Try--_try_ to ask her to let me help her--even though she may never consent to be my wife."

But this late-found, powerful plea seemed for a space to come too late, to fall all unheeded away from death's deaf ears. A wonderful radiance, such as rarely dawns in the face of the living, was now slowly dawning in the sweet, still whiteness of Miss Judy's face. The young man could not look upon it; he could not bear to hear Doris's helpless, heart-broken sobbing; he could only keep to his knees and lay his humbled head lower on the old quilt and nearer hers.

And then after a long time, after all hope of hearing the gentle voice again seemed wholly lost, it came back like a whisper in a dream, and Lynn and Doris heard Miss Judy say:--

"I do--ask--it--Doris--dear one. But--unless--you are--married--it wouldn't--be----"

She could say no more, but she had said enough. With this crowning triumph of her last artless plot the smile on the little white face brightened forever into unearthly sweetness. With these last words Miss Judy's gentle spirit breathed itself out of the world.

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