Then I knew too well; and knew from the first I had never felt one thrill of hope. They were quite gentle with me. She had survived to consciousness, they said—after that ineffectual attempt to extract the bullets—only long enough to make her brief depositions and to give them her father’s address. But many times she had whispered my name, imploring them to send for me; and she had died with it on her lips. Died with it on her lips—and I, loitering in the rainy street!
Her face was quite peaceful, they told me—quite peaceful and beautiful. But I would not let them show it me. There were the living eyes to remember; and I could not bear it. What had this to do with the vital reality, the hot vivid ecstasy of old confidences?
The father was there—aghast, tremulous, helpless. He recognised me, and, rising from his knees, came to me, weeping:—
“You were her friend, Monsieur: you will continue to be mine for her sake?” And then he threw up his hands—“My child, my little one, with that voice of an angel, that sang so sweetly on the earth, and now goes to mingle with the heavenly choirs! Never, never shall I hear thee sing again! And what hadst thou ever done of harm to mark thee down the prey to these cruel miscreants?”
I regarded him stonily.
“She never sang to me,” I said.
He was sobbingly, self-interestedly eager at once to explain and propitiate—
“She would not, indeed, Monsieur, uninvited: she was ever modest as to her own gifts: it was to the realisation of the best there was in those she loved that she devoted her unselfish faculties.”
And his plaintive cry pierced into my heart like a knife.
* * * * * * *