They went together to the camp, and brought back a woman with them, who raised Margaret from the ground, and otherwise attended to her. Her state was truly pitiable; and the worst aspect of it was that her grief seemed to have dried up the fountain of her tears.
"If she would only cry!" thought Mr. Hart, as she gazed at him with her despairing, tearless eyes.
He was her sole comfort. She turned from all others with shuddering aversion, and had she been able, she would have refused, and not with gentleness, their kind offices. Truth was, she hated the place in which her love had died, and hated the people who lived in it. It was unreasonable in her, but it was so.
She asked for her mother, and they were compelled to tell her the sad truth. She grasped Mr. Hart's hand convulsively.
"You are my only friend now," she said; "you tried to save my Philip. You were always good to him--ah, yes! he told me all, and was never tired of speaking of you. Do not you desert me, or I shall go mad!"
"I will take care of you, child. I promised Philip."
She kissed his hand with her dry lips.
On the day of Philip's funeral, all the stores in Silver Creek closed their doors, and the storekeepers and the diggers and their wives, to the number or three thousand and more, followed to the grave the body of a man whom all had loved and respected.
In the evening, Mr. Hart sat, sad and alone, outside his tent, and for the first time since the death of his friend, thought of himself. Again he was a beggar, and the image of his daughter seemed to recede in the clouds as he gazed at them mournfully, and a plaintive whisper of Farewell seemed to come to him from over the hills. "I shall never have the heart to commence again," he said to himself, "never, never! My life is over; my hopes, my dreams, have come to an end."
"What are you thinking of?" asked a kind voice.