So we went in. When I laid my hand on his shoulder he looked up with a dazed expression till he saw who it was and who was with me. Then he smiled at us both, and after that one welcoming glance turned back to the bed.
We went back to the sitting room and stood there a moment, uncertainly. Then Richard opened the screen door, beckoning me to follow. He led the way to the swing, and we stepped in and sat down, facing each other. It stood so close to the cottage that to sit there opposite the open window was almost like being in the room. The glow from the lamp streamed out across the grass towards us, dimly yellow. We could see every movement, hear every rustle. Belle and the nurse tiptoed back and forth. Danny went out and came in again. Then they settled back into the shadowy corners.
Somewhere away up in the town, a phonograph began playing "The Long, Long Trail." The notes came to us faintly a few moments, then stopped, and the silence grew deeper and deeper. Nothing broke it except a cricket's chirp in the grass, and now and then a half-whispered word of soothing from Uncle Darcy. He crooned as he would to a sleepy child.
"There's naught to fear, lass. . . . All's well. . . . Dan'l's holding you."
Already she was beyond the comfort of his voice, but he kept on murmuring reassuringly, as if the protecting care that had never failed her in a long half-century of devotion was great enough now in this extreme hour to push aside even Death. He would go with her down into the very Valley of the Shadow.
As I sat there listening, dozens of little scenes came crowding up out of the past like mute witnesses to their beautiful love for each other. There was the day Mrs. Saggs found a nightgown of Aunt Elspeth's in the work-basket with a bungling patch half-stitched on by Uncle Darcy's stiff old fingers, and what she said about those old hands making a botch of patches, but never any botch in being kind. And the day Father and I, waiting in the kitchen, saw her cling to him and tell him quaveringly, "You're always so good to me, Dan'l. You're the best man the Lord ever made."
I do not know how long we sat there, but there was time to review all the many happy days I had spent with them in the little cottage. Then some very new and startling thoughts came crowding up in the overwhelming way they do when one is drowning. It seems to me I grew years older in that time of waiting. I had always been afraid of Death before, but suddenly the fear left me. It was no longer to be dreaded as the strongest thing in the world, if Love could thrust it aside like that and walk on past it, immortal and unafraid.
I didn't know I was crying till two tears splashed down on my hands, which were pressed tightly together in my lap. A little shiver ran over me. Richard leaned forward and took my white sweater from the back of the seat where I had thrown it, motioning for me to put it on. I shook my head but he kept on holding it out for me to slip my arms into, in that insistent, masterful way of his, till finally I did so. I hadn't known I was cold till I felt the warmth of it around me. Then I noticed that a breeze had sprung up and was stirring the boughs of the apple tree, and my hands were like ice from the long nervous strain.
But even more comforting than the wrap which enveloped me was the inward warmth that came from the sense of being watched over and taken care of.
The long vigil went on. Suddenly the nurse leaned over and said something. And then—Belle pulled down the shade.