“My dear child, your arm pains you, and I beg you to defer your journey at least until Tuesday. I shall be anxious and 340 miserable about you, if you go this morning, and, for my sake, Salome, if not for your own, remain here one day longer. I have not asked many things of you, and I trust you will not refuse this last request I may ever be allowed to make.”
She attempted to speak, but there came only a quiver across her mouth, and a sickly smile that flickered over the ghastly proud face, like the lying sunshine of Indian summer on marble cenotaphs.
“Salome, you will, to oblige me, wait until Tuesday?”
She shook her head, and mastered her weakness.
“No, Dr. Grey; I must go at once. I take all the hazard.”
“Then you will find on the mantelpiece in my room, a paper containing directions for the treatment of your arm, which demands care and attention. I am sorry you are so obstinate, and, if I possessed the authority, I would forbid your departure.”
He could not endure the despairing expression of her eyes, which seemed supernaturally large and brilliant, and his own quailed, for the first time within his recollection. She knew that she was going away forever, to avoid the sight of his happiness with Mrs. Gerome; that, in comparison with that torture, all other trials, even separation, would be endurable, but the least evil was more severe than she had dreaded. Now, as she looked up at his noble face, overshadowed with anxiety and regret, and paler than she had ever seen it, the one prayer of her heart was, that, ere a wife’s lips touched his, death might claim him for its prey.
“Salome, I am deeply pained by the course you persist in following, but I will not provoke and annoy you by renewed expression of a disapprobation that has proved so ineffectual in influencing your decision. God grant that the results may sanction your confidence in your own judgment,—your distrust of mine. I promised you once that I would pray for you, and I wish to assure you, that, while I live, I shall never lay my head upon my pillow without having first committed you to the mercy and loving care of that Guardian who never ‘slumbers, nor sleeps.’ May God bless and guide you, my dear young friend, and if not again in this world, grant that we 341 may meet in the Everlasting City of Peace. Little sister, be sure to meet me in the Kingdom of Rest, where dear Janet waits for us both.”
His calm eyes filled with tears, and his voice grew tremulous, as he took Salome’s cold, passive hand, and kissed it.
“Good-by, Dr. Grey; if I find my way to heaven, it will be because you are there. When I am gone, let my name and memory be like that of the dead.”