Chapter VIII: Part II (4)

The day passed slowly and heavily. My father lay with his eyes half closed, scarcely noticing anything. I did not let Cuthbert see him, for fear of disturbing him, but later in the day, when Hildred and Martha were with him, he heard the strange footstep on the stairs. Cuthbert's step now, soldierly and measured, was very unlike the light quick tread my father used to know. It was no remembrance that made him turn his head on the pillow to listen, and then say to Hildred, 'Who?'

I tried to turn his attention away, but the footstep crossed the room below, and my father repeated, 'Who is it?'

'Cuthbert Franklyn,' Hildred said, quietly.

'Cuthbert!' There was very little surprise in his voice as he repeated the name. 'Cuthbert! Bring him here.'

I went outside the room and called him. I was sorry my father should find out that Cuthbert was there, but I saw in a few minutes that it mattered very little. The small interests of Time, its lights and shadows, were growing faint and dim for the eyes on which Eternity was just about to dawn.

My father held out his hand feebly when Cuthbert stood beside his bed. After a minute he looked up at him again, and murmured a few words, too low for any of us to catch distinctly. I believe they were something about fishing, and that his thoughts were wandering back to when Cuthbert was a boy. He did not need an answer. In a few minutes he was lying quietly as before.

Cuthbert stood for a while at the foot of the bed and then went away.

It made me feel more than ever that I was alone. My father had cared so much about my marrying Hildred; and now Cuthbert's return, which put an end to that thought for ever, awoke no interest in him. He was neither surprised nor sorry that Cuthbert and Hildred should have been standing together beside his bed.

Hildred was very quiet. She waited on my father with careful tenderness, and avoided as much as she could speaking to me. When she had done everything for my father, she stood still for a long while looking down at him. Perhaps, like me, she half-envied him his peaceful rest.

Nearly everybody in the village came up in the course of the day to see Cuthbert. The news of his return had spread far and wide, and his old friends thronged to welcome him, hardly able to believe that he was really the Cuthbert Franklyn they had so long talked of as dead. Everybody wished me joy.

'I'm sure I'm as glad as though it had been a son of my own,' said good old Esther Reynolds. 'I knew how you'd feel, Willie, let alone Hildred. Just at this time too, it seems sent to cheer you up a bit, now your father lies so ill. I said so when I heard the news, and that I must make shift to get up to the Castle and tell Willie Lisle how I thought about him; for, as I said to my master, the two boys were wonderful fond of each other--more than most real brothers. Now there are my two lads, quarrelled at the fair last Michaelmas, and haven't so much as spoken one to the t'other since.'

Cuthbert looked at me and I at him, and we held out our hands to each other. Everybody was shaking hands and we were not noticed. As I felt his strong left-handed grasp, something that was like a cloud seemed to roll away from between us.

'It's all right now, old chap,' he said, low enough for no one but me to hear.

So it was 'all right' from that time forth between him and me. But he began by degrees to see that Hildred was changed, and that his fancy the night he had come home was no mistake.

He was very patient and gentle to her, even when she was the most changeable or cold. He never complained; only he often sat still without speaking, with a sad look on his face.

'I must give her time,' he said to me once or twice. 'It will come right by-and-by. I have grown strange to her. Will, I sometimes think this is a judgment on me for the selfish way I went and left her when I first enlisted.'

'You must wait,' I used to say.

'Oh yes, I will; I am trying to be very patient, and I believe that she will come back to me in time.'

I don't think he ever really doubted that. His trust in her, like his love for her, was perfect.

My father's state was reason enough for settling nothing. We all felt it to be a time of waiting. For myself, I looked forward very little. A merciful kind of lull and calmness had come across my life, as I watched over my father's last days.

He died as silently as he had lived. I had wished for some spoken word to tell me he was happy, and that the hand of the Good Shepherd was guiding him through the valley of the shadow of death. But it was not so to be. An upward look; a clasping of the hands; a deep 'Amen,' uttered at the end of the prayers the vicar offered by his bed; a smile when the most comforting of all names was spoken to him. Those were the outward signs he gave.

For the rest, who can tell what was passing in his mind during those silent nights and days?

The end came towards morning, after a night of storm and rain. The wind was shaking the lattice windows and moaning round the ruins. We were all gathered about his bed--Cuthbert and I, Matt Clifford and his wife, and Hildred. When, towards midnight, the strange change that even those who have seen little of death know instinctively, began to come across his face Cuthbert went to fetch them. Everyone was quite quiet except poor Hildred. She could not keep back her sobs, as she knelt with her face hidden on the side of the bed.

I saw Cuthbert move round, and without speaking put his hand on her bowed head.

All seemed unreal and far away to me, except my father's overshadowed face and deep-drawn breath. 'He does not know anything,' said Martha Clifford, watching him.

But as if he somehow felt the coming of the morning, he stirred and opened his eyes, and in a thick indistinct voice he asked the hour.

I bent over and told him.

The next moment he said, 'Is it day-break?'

No, it was still quite dark; but a new, bright unearthly smile came over his face. With a thrill of awe and wonder we looked to see it fade----

'It is over,' Martha Clifford said.

And the smile remained.

* * * * *

A few days more, and the slow tolling of the church bell called us to go down and lay our dead under the shadow of the grey belfry.

My father's burial was over, and we had come back to the empty house. All that afternoon I sat by the fire-place in his vacant chair, and tried to think of what I ought to do.

The house was quite silent, and the door, as usual in summer, stood half open.

Somehow I fell to thinking of my mother more than of my father. It was just on such a quiet afternoon as this that I came home years ago, after she was dead, and found Cuthbert near the well. I thought of the message Master Caleb brought me from her, bidding me be as a brother to Cuthbert, and I wondered whether she would still have sent it, if she could have known all that was to follow. What would she have had me do now? The way did not seem clear before me. All my kith and kin were gone. I had seen them carried one by one across the threshold, and had stood by while they were laid to rest in the churchyard down yonder. Mother first; then the kind old grandmother, and now my father. I was as much alone as Cuthbert was when he first came to us. The wheel of life had turned round since then, and left me poor.

Cuthbert stayed with me for some time, sitting in the chair opposite to mine, and trying every now and then, poor fellow, to find something cheering to say to me. But I did not care to talk, so at last he went to the door and let in more sunshine as he pushed it open; then he came back to me, and after putting his hand on my shoulder and saying something about going to look for Hildred he went away.

I was glad to be left alone, though Cuthbert was grave and sad enough, and almost as ready to sit silently thinking as I was. He and my father had never been much to each other. Yet it was the breaking of a long tie, and the losing of the last bit of the old life. Besides, he was unhappy about Hildred.

I suppose a long time passed while I still sat thinking, for the sun came round to the other window, and cast long level rays into the room.

Suddenly a great noise roused me--a loud crash and then a rumbling sound, as if loose stones were falling over one another. Once before I had heard something like it when a part of the Castle wall had fallen. I went out quickly now, towards the part of the ruin that the sound came from.

Hildred met me as I passed under the arch near the keep. She was as pale as death. She clutched my arm and tried to speak. I could barely hear what she said, for some horror seemed to be choking her, and she gasped for breath. She pulled me back in the direction from which she came.

'I have killed him. Come!'

'Hildred what is it? Where is Cuthbert?'

She pointed across the ruins. Still in the same hoarse whisper she said, 'The tower fell in; I took him there.'

It was true; part of the tower had fallen. It was the oldest bit of the ruin, and the walls were mouldering away. I had often warned Hildred that it was unsafe. Now I saw a great heap of massive fallen stones and masonry, and a huge gap in the wall. A bit of the winding stone stair was down. Far above our heads the broken steps began again. Merciful Heaven! was Cuthbert buried under all that?

'Can he be alive?' Hildred gasped, and ended with a long wild scream, as she saw the horror in my face.

'Hush, Hildred, I must get the tools; call Matt; send the boys for help.'

When I came back Matt Clifford was there. Hildred had flung herself down upon the fallen stones and was tearing at the rough masses with her bare hands.

Poor child! I must tell you now, what I heard afterwards, why she said that she had done it. I did not ask then, only worked for dear life, and spoke no words, except a few which I will tell you later.

Cuthbert had found her when he left me. She was thinking of my father, and her heart, she said, was full of longing to come and comfort me in my trouble. 'It seemed hardest of all not to be able to tell you how sorry I was. Your father was always so good to me.'

So when Cuthbert joined her she was cross with him, and reproached him for having left me alone at such a time. He was very gentle and patient, but she would not listen. They wandered on as they talked, and came to this tower. Hildred wanted to get away from him, and began to climb the winding stair, bidding him not follow her. Half way up there was a broken window, out of which we often used to jump as children, on to the wall beneath. She reached this in safety, but Cuthbert had come after her; turning round she saw the stair waver beneath his greater weight. The wall rocked to and fro--bent inwards--and then came the awful crash which I had heard, and Cuthbert was gone.

I knew it was useless, yet I could not help bending down and calling out his name. No answer. A dead silence there, but behind, the welcome sound of hurrying steps, as man after man came up to us, breathless, horror-stricken, eager to help.

We fell to work, working as men only can when life or death seems hanging on their hands. Scarcely a word was uttered. There was only the sound of the pickaxes driven deep down into the heaps of rubbish,--the grating noise of stones raised up and thrown aside--by-and-by the quickened breathing of those who would not stop to rest. On and on, with a grim energy, and agony of suspense, that seemed to double the power in those strong arms and quivering muscles. On and on, with wild words of voiceless prayer ringing in my ears, with thoughts that wandered strangely to my father's funeral, to the tolling of the church bell, to Hildred standing sobbing by the open grave.

She was close beside me. Her hands were torn and bleeding, cut by the sharp stones which she was trying madly to lift up and roll away. The gravel that the spades threw aside, fell all over her, but she did not know it. I lifted her up, for there was not room enough for all the workers, who could give stronger help than hers. She struggled to get away from me, telling me to let her go back and help.

'You cannot help us so,' I said. 'Hildred! poor child, kneel down and pray for us.'

'Oh, I cannot. I do not know how. I am too wicked. Tell me what to say.'

Somehow, the solemn words that we had heard that day, standing by my father's grave, came to my lips, and I repeated them.

'In the midst of life we are in death. Of whom may we seek for succour but of Thee, O Lord, who for our sins art justly displeased?'

Hildred had fallen on her knees, repeating 'Oh, justly displeased, most justly.'

I was back at work. I heard Hildred say, 'Won't some one pray again?' and presently an old man, the parish clerk, standing near her, said in a broken voice, with many pauses, 'In all time of our tribulation, in the hour of death, and in the day of judgment----'

From us all--from poor Hildred--from the eager workers, and the watchers standing by, came as with one voice, the deep response, 'Good Lord, deliver us.'

The time was drawing near when we should know the worst. The great heap of fallen masonry was getting smaller every minute. Could Cuthbert have been saved alive? We came upon great stems of ivy crushed and broken in the ruin. The fresh leaves, unwithered yet, shone out strangely here and there.

Hildred had not moved. She was kneeling, almost lying on the ground. The setting sun was shining in our eyes, dazzling us as we worked, with what seemed to me--calm, pitiless curiosity.

A great stone, almost the last, was lifted on one side. From those in front there suddenly rose a sort of cheer, checked instantly, a smothered exclamation, and then an eager silence, as they bent over something on the ground.

I gave one look, went back to Hildred, and knelt down by her. I burst out crying like a child when I began to speak. I could not help it. Then I took her hand and told her, 'Hildred, dear heart, be comforted. There is hope.'

He was not crushed. God had guarded him. He had fallen in some manner sheltered from the great stones, by the wall and the remains of the staircase. He was half buried under the bits of broken wall, and he lay quite still and unconscious at our feet. But he might be living yet. We carried him out, and laid him down in the sunshine.

Was it life or death--that rigid figure that did not move, that ashen-grey face, with the thin stream of blood trickling from the temple?

Hildred was on the ground beside him, gazing into his face with straining eyes, that seemed as if they must call him back from death itself. She lifted up his arm and tried to put it round her. She called to him, first in a choked whisper, then louder, yet louder, as his silence struck the chill of terror more into her heart.

'Cuthbert, Cuthbert! Oh come back! Forgive me! Dear Cuthbert, speak to me!'

The men stood round watching her. I heard some of them crying, great rough fellows as they were. Hildred looked up at me with bright, widely-opened eyes--no tears in them. Then she spoke to him again, called on him to come back, and she would love him. He heard her. Some tone of hers must have reached him even then. He moved, drew a faint sigh. Oh the low cry she gave! It was not a word or a sob, but just the half-stifled first cry of a new-born hope.

And then Cuthbert opened his eyes, saw her leaning over him, and smiled. She did not speak, only bent down lower, until her face lay hidden by her hands upon his breast.

In a few minutes, very slowly and feebly he raised his hand and put it on her head.

Cuthbert was taken to Clifford's house, which was much nearer at hand than ours. For a few hours more we watched him anxiously. Life came back slowly, but at length the doctor turned away from the bed with a sigh of relief. 'He will do now,' he said cheerily. 'Only keep him quiet. Why, it would never have done to let him slip through our fingers in this sort of way, after his getting over his wounds and escaping out of that Indian prison, as they tell me he did.'

By the next day he could speak to us in a weak voice, and had revived enough to smile a little when Martha told him he had got no more than he deserved, for mooning about in places where Jock himself knew better than to venture.

Towards evening I left him comfortably asleep. Hildred followed me out of the porch, and closed the house door behind her. For a few minutes we did not speak, but stood looking at the setting sun, and thinking--at least I thought--with what different eyes we had seen it going down yesterday, not less peacefully than to-day.

Hildred spoke first, lifting her eyes to mine with a grave rested look that it was new to me to see upon her face.

'God has been merciful,' she said.

'Most merciful.'

'And now----'

My heart was beating fast and heavily. In her grief, in her great terror and her self-reproach, she had seemed to grow dearer to me than ever before; and now that the moment had come--I knew it had--when I must really give her up, I felt as if I could not part with her.

'And now, Willie, I must try to be good at last.' She stopped for a moment, and clasped her hands. 'In that most dreadful time last night, when you told me to pray--when you and the men were working, and I did not know whether or not I had killed him, I made a promise, a solemn promise before God. You know what it was.'

I nodded.

'God gave me back Cuthbert's life. I must try to make it a happy life. I must redeem my promise. Willie, you will help me?'

And so the battle--the hard struggle--was over for her. Well, it was far better so. She was not strong, my darling; she could not have borne a long battle such as a man must fight, so God led her by a short sharp road back to peace.

For a short time we stood together still. Then Hildred turned slowly. 'And now, Willie, just once before I go, I want you to say God bless you.'

As she stood before me looking up at me, I put my hand upon her head, and said, as steadily as I could, 'God bless my dear love for ever, and make her happy.'

The tears were streaming down her face, not bitter tears, but quietly sorrowful. And as I ended she clasped her dear arms for a moment lightly round my neck, and kissed me. That was our farewell. We said no more, and Hildred went away. I watched her until the door closed behind her. When she shut it, the Hildred I loved and who loved me, had passed away from my sight and from my life.

I do not mean that I did not see her, for she was often there when I went to Cuthbert, and after a few days she came with him to the Gatehouse.

Those days, the first of a good many that I had spent quite alone, gave me time to think over many things. My duty began to grow plain to me. Hildred had asked me to help her. I was growing to see more clearly how I could best do so.

Cuthbert got better very quickly. He too, I believe, was thinking a great deal just then of what his future life should be. Hitherto he had been too sad and anxious to make plans, but now that Hildred seemed to have come back to him, he began to wonder how they were to live. He told me so once, when I was sitting by his bed, saying that he would not let it trouble him just yet, he was too happy. Still, he could not help remembering that his pension was very small, and that he had not got two arms like other people. 'I wonder if I can earn enough for Hildred with one arm,' he said. 'Do advise me, Will.'

I asked him to let the future rest for a little longer, and he was content to do so, being weak still, as well as very happy.

In a few days he could walk about again, and one evening he and Hildred came across the ruins and sat down to rest on the old stone bench outside our house. I remember every little thing that happened on that evening, so like, and yet so unlike, any other that I have ever spent. I could almost repeat each word that was said, every-day and purposeless as some of them would have appeared to any one but me.

I felt as if they must guess my secret, when I asked Cuthbert to come home to-morrow and to look after the house and the Castle gate, while I was away.

'Going away!' said Hildred, looking up.

I was obliged to go to Morechester, I told them, to see the man of business who managed everything about the Castle. He must be told of my father's death, and would settle who was to come after him. Long ago it had been promised that I should do so.

'So it's sure to be all right,' said Cuthbert.

'Oh yes, all right.'

Cuthbert was the one of us who talked the most. He went on to say how like old times it was, for us three to be there together. Neither Hildred nor I made much answer, and presently, following the train of his own thoughts, he began to tell us about his soldier life, his last battle, the dreary years of his imprisonment, and then his escape.

I was glad, and so I think was Hildred, to sit silent and hear him talk. I can see her now, listening quietly and gravely, with her hands folded on her lap. I like to remember her in my mother's place. Often since, I have fancied her sitting there.

The twilight drew on. Now and then a bee, heavily laden, went droning past. The sound of the river rippling over the stones below came to us more clearly. One star shone out. We had been sitting without talking for some time, and Hildred said they must go home.

'I shall be gone before you are awake in the morning,' I said. 'I will leave the key for you.'

They bade me good-night, and went away together.

Cuthbert turned, I have often wondered why, after he had gone a few steps, and came back to wring my hand again. 'Good-night, Will,' he repeated. 'I'll take good care of the old place while you're away. Good speed to you on your journey.'

The words sounded to me like a farewell. 'Will you promise to stay until I come back?' I said, still holding his hand. And he answered, laughing, 'Of course.'

I watched them crossing the Castle Court. Cuthbert was leaning on Hildred. She walked slowly and carefully. Once or twice he bent his head down to talk to her, and I saw her look up to answer him. As they went on she put her hand up to his, which was on her shoulder, as if she told him to lean on her more heavily.

So I lost sight of them in the twilight. God bless them both! It was many years before I saw either of them again.

Later at night, when the moon was up, I went all over the ruins. The grey towers were whitened by the moon-beams, and draped in black ivy, with here and there a silver leaf that the light had fallen upon. From the deep shadow cast by the walls and towers, I passed into the full stream of colourless radiance, then back again into darkness.

For many minutes I stood under Hildred's window, against the diamond-shaped panes of which the moon was glittering. 'Sleep peacefully dear love,' I said to her in my heart. 'Wake happily. God give you bright dreams and gladsome days for ever.'

Lastly, I came to the well, and leaning over the edge looked down wearily. There was the reflection of one sparkling star down there, that lay quivering on the black water. I cannot tell how long I stayed thus; for then I began to lose myself.

The rest of that night, the morrow, and many of the days that followed, are almost a blank in my memory--a blank from which some few pictures stand out more or less distinctly.

I see myself standing before sunrise on the bridge, and turning to take a long last look at the old home. A dewy misty morning had come after the moonlight night. By-and-by it would brighten into a cloudless summer's day; but now the mist hung in heavy folds over the Castle. For an instant the morning breeze might blow it aside and show a glimpse of ruined wall and towered gateway, but the next the white curtain floated back again, and all was hidden.

In the strange confusion that was coming over my thoughts it seemed to me as if those fleecy wreaths of mist were rolling over my whole life, and covering up the past from me for ever.

Next I see Morechester, with burning sunlight blazing on the market-place, and church bells sending abroad their golden waves of sound. Suddenly the glare is quenched as I pass under the arched doorway into the Minster. The air strikes chill, there is a great dimness and silence. From the other end of the nave come echoes as of closing gates and distant footsteps, and presently voices are singing. There is an iron gate which I try to open, but it is locked, and red light shines through a curtain. I am shut out. Within there is peace, and prayer, and sweet music rising up to heaven. Outside I kneel alone by the closed gate. Everything is unreal. I feel as though it were the gate of Paradise that is shut against me. But I can catch that in there they are asking the good Lord to comfort and help the weak-hearted, and the sweet pitying voices that sound as if angels were singing, echo the prayer. They, too, are pleading for me, and I am comforted. And the prayers and the music go their way, and seem to carry me up with them towards heaven.

Again I am in a small dark room, and a grave man is listening while I tell a story. He answers me, and I know that I have won my suit. Cuthbert is to have the Gatehouse instead of me. It is promised to him, and a great load is taken off my mind. Now Cuthbert need fear no future for Hildred or himself. There was but that one way to help them both.

It only remained to send the letter I had already written back to Cuthbert.

It was a good thing that it had been written slowly and carefully beforehand, for now I could not hold my thoughts together, or keep them on one thing for many minutes. In the letter I had told Cuthbert the truth, though not the whole truth. I said that I had grown restless of late, and Wyncliffe had become wearisome to me, so I had gone forth into the world to seek my fortune; and that, if I left them all without saying good-bye they must forgive me--leave-takings were but dreary things; and I knew well how in their kindness they would try to keep me back if they heard that I was going. The rest was easy to say. Cuthbert must know how much rather I would think of him in the old place than of a stranger. He would believe that he was doing me a kindness in filling the post I had given up, so that the life-long tie that bound me to Wyncliffe would be still unbroken, and some one would live in the Gatehouse who loved it as much as I always should, though I was leaving it. I hoped that he and Hildred would be happy there, as we had been long ago.

Then I remember, but very dimly and confusedly, long days of travel, one after the other, during which the only thing I cared for was to get on quickly, farther yet farther, so as to put the greatest distance between myself and all the places I had ever seen.

After that an unknown room; strange, but kindly faces bending over a bed on which I lay, my own voice repeating always, 'Hildred--Cuthbert--little Jock, good-bye,' until my brain seemed to turn round with the weary words.

The thread of memory breaks there.

I find myself again, crossing a moor on an autumn evening. The heather is in bloom still, and looks purple-red in the low rays of the sun. The wide heath, rising and falling like the waves of the sea, stretches on to join the sky. Poised high aloft, on quivering wings, a sky-lark sings its cloud-song. And far away, backed by the golden sunset, there rises the spire of a little church, with a village clustering round it. I am bound there. There is a pack on my shoulders, for I am a pedlar, and am beginning to get the name you have all called me by for so many years. I am Wandering Willie. In those days I had little heart to care what I became. My life seemed to be over. I little thought how long it would yet last.

But it has not been a sad one, though its story, such as it is, ended on the day when I looked my last on the mist-covered towers of Wyncliffe.

The sharp edge of sorrow wears down with time. Peace, the evergreen, grows where joy once blossomed. The road-side flowers bloom fresh and fair, though the garden has been left behind. I would not have things otherwise than as they are. I would not have my youth back, though all I once longed for so passionately were granted with it.

Youth can rarely say I am content, as I can. Young limbs must breast the mountain side, and I have gained the top.

Hildred and Cuthbert lived long and happily. It was some years before I let Cuthbert know where I was. Then immediately he came to me. After that we saw each other every now and then; and though meeting seldom, we were yet friends and brothers, as we had always been. There never was another secret between us. Hildred long before had told her husband all the story of his four years of absence.

But I never went back to Wyncliffe until I was an old man.

It was after an illness that I had, during which my thoughts turned constantly to Hildred. A longing for her presence, that had been stilled for many years, woke up once more and drew me towards her.

When next Cuthbert came to see me I went back with him to Wyncliffe. As in a dream, nay rather, as one returning from the dead, I saw again the once familiar places--the grey church, the lime-trees, the village-green, where they were playing cricket just as they used in my day. No one knew the old man. All the faces that I met were strange to me; some only bore a dim ghostly likeness to people I had known.

Once or twice Cuthbert told me the name of a passer-by, as we went along slowly under the lime-trees.

That was Jock Clifford's son, with the bat over his shoulder, a young man, fair and ruddy, but twice as old as his father was when I last saw him. From one of the cottages a child ran out, a brown-eyed toddling little girl, who came towards Cuthbert with a scream of pleasure, and called him grandfather. 'Our boy Will's little lass,' said Cuthbert, raising her on to his shoulder. He called to a woman passing by and bade her come and see an old friend. She came with the hesitating look of one who is told to speak to a stranger. 'You do not know him, Phillis,' Cuthbert said.

Was that Phillis, Hildred's little niece, the laughing rosy child that I remembered? Could this be her?

My heart failed me. The day that I belonged to had indeed passed away. I could not bear to see Hildred grown strange to me like the rest.

It was not that I should love the altered face less, far from it. But I had carried the young bright image of my one love for so long in my heart, I could not bear to lose it.

For those who lived with her, each line, each change, must have grown dear. To me they would be strange, and I feared lest afterwards I might never be able to call back again the gracious presence that had cheered my lonely life.

So, as twilight was over before we reached the Castle, I begged Cuthbert to leave me by the old well, and to bring Hildred to me there, that, in the darkness, I might hold her hand and hear her voice once more, then go my way, and still think of her without one shadow on her face that time or care had thrown.

Cuthbert, willing to do my pleasure though he but half understood me, obeyed my wish.

It was not for long that he left me alone, yet in those few minutes my whole life seemed to pass before me. Near me, above the well, were the old carved words of the promise I had once doubted. It had been too hard for me to make out when I was a child--it was too dark to read it now; yet even in this world it had been fulfilled. That cup of cold water given a life-time ago, had in no wise lost its reward. Cuthbert and Hildred had been happy. And for me, when I was left alone, God Himself drew nigh and was my Friend; though there had been some darkness on my way, the Light of lights, ever brightening, was shining on it.

Thinking thus, I saw that a figure came towards me swiftly through the darkness.

I took the hands she held out to me in my own, and heard her say, 'Willie, welcome home.'

Just for a few moments the weight of years was lifted off our heads, and Hildred and I were boy and girl once more.

We did not say much, nor did I stay long with her. I was content to have been near her, and to have listened to her voice. We parted presently, with a blessing spoken quietly, as befitted those who had once loved each other well, but whom God in His good providence had parted, and who never looked to meeting in this world again. And I went away.

So the two faces I have loved the most, Hildred's and my mother's, never grew old for me, but shine on me still, and are for ever young, for ever fair.

And I think that when I see them next they will be fairer yet, for they will have 'put on immortality.'