“Be brave, dear,” he said, stroking her gray hair; “be brave.” He was trying so hard to be brave himself, and she was crying. He had not often seen her cry. She could not speak for many minutes; she could only pat him on the shoulder where her head lay.
“Remember, my precious boy,” she managed to say at last, “that there’s a strong Arm to lean upon.”
He saw that she was turning now to the great faith that had sustained her in every trial of a life that had known so many trials; and the tears came to his own eyes. He would have left her for a moment but she followed him. He had an impulse he could not resist to torture himself by going over the house again; he went into the dining-room which in the darkness wore an air of waiting for the breakfast they would eat when he was gone; he went to the kitchen and took a drink of water, from the old habit he was now breaking; then he went up stairs and looked into his own room, at the neatly made bed where he was to sleep no more; at last he stood at the door of the study.
He could catch the odor of his father’s cigar, just as he had in standing there so many times before; he pushed the door open and felt the familiar hot, close, smoke-laden atmosphere which his father seemed to find so congenial to his studies. Doctor Marley took off his spectacles and pushed his manuscript aside, and Marley felt that he never would forget that picture of the gray head bent in its earnest labors over that worn and littered desk; it was photographed for all time on his memory. His words with his father had always been few; there were no more now.
“Well, father,” he said, “I’ve come to say good-by.”
His father pushed back his chair and turned about. He half-rose, then sank back again and took his son’s hand.
“Good-by, Glenn,” he said. “You’ll write?”
“Yes.”
“Write often. We’ll want to hear.”
“Yes, write often,” the doctor said. “And take care of yourself.”