Taking a light blanket from the bed, Father Temple lifted the emaciated form, cradled him tenderly in his arms, and bore him across the orchard. The mother preceded them, opened and closed the gate, and, when they reached the meadow, she withdrew to the brink of the pond, sat down under the ancient willow, and locked her hands in her lap. Close by, on a knoll, the blanket had been spread; Leighton was laid upon it, and feebly stretching his arms drew the daisies over him until they veiled the shrunken figure, and only the wan face and golden curls were visible. In a pale-blue sky the sun shone hot; white butterflies swam lazily to and fro, like drifting blossoms from interstellar gardens; a sheep bell tinkled now and then, and from the south, a freshening wind bore echoes of the ceaseless chant of the heaving sea.
Out of the flowery coverlet Leighton's hand stole, feeling for his father's fingers, and a happy light shone in the boy's violet eyes, but his breathing had grown quick and painfully labored. Suddenly he struggled up, leaning against his father's shoulder.
"What ails the sun? Mother! Where's mother?"
One of those swift, ghostly fogs that spring without warning from the ocean was sweeping inland, and as sunlight smote the advancing pillars of mist it seemed transmuted into battlements and towers of some city of silver. Strained maternal ears had caught the boy's faint cry, and Nona knelt, clasping him close, resting his head on her bosom. His wide and wondering eyes were fixed on the strange, shining wall drawing swiftly nearer.
"The gates of heaven! Mother, mother——"
A moment later the chill waves of mist flowed over them, blotting out the sun.
Under that grey pall, daisy-dotted, the blue eyes closed; the pure, lovely face, still smiling, lay white against his mother's cheek.
Not always comes imperial death as pacificator; now and then the flame of vengeance leaps through the shroud of shadows, and sometimes open graves typify wider, deeper chasms that know no closing. There are natures who prefer total surrender rather than any sharing of that which they hold dearest; and of such was the pallid, dry-eyed mother, lying hour after hour on the bed where her fragile boy slept his last sleep.
His head rested on her right arm, and with her left hand she had drawn his icy fingers inside her dress, trying to warm them on the breast where in infancy they toyed. Since the moment she had snatched him from the meadow couch of daisies and borne him unaided to the farmhouse, no one was allowed to touch him, and the angel who called and guided the young soul to God was more welcome than the human father daring to claim him. During the long night of her last vigil, the priest, pacing an adjoining room, wondered at the stern repression of her grief; and only once, through the half-open door, came a frantic cry, ending in a low, quivering wail.