"Alte! Alte!" he screamed: "Dido sat on high: Aeneas stood at the foot of her throne. Listen to this:—'Then Dido, bending down her gaze . . . '"
He went on translating. A rapture took him, and the sun beat in through the glass roof, and lit up his eyes. He was transfigured; his voice swelled and sank with passion, swelled again, and then, at the words—
"Quae te tam laeta tulerunt
Saecula? Qui tanti talem genuere parentes?"
It broke, the Virgil dropped from his hand, and sinking down on his stool he broke into a wild fit of sobbing.
"Oh, why did I read it? Why did I read this sorrowful book?" And then checking his sobs, he put a handkerchief to his mouth, took it away, and looked up at me with dry eyes.
"Go away, little one, Don't come again: I am going to die very soon now."
I stole out, awed and silent, and went home. But the picture of him kept me awake that night, and early in the morning I dressed and ran off to the glass-house.
He was still sitting as I had left him.
"Why have you come?" he asked, harshly. "I have been coughing.
I am going to die."
"Then I'll fetch a doctor."