After a while the woman rose, and walking on tiptoe, holding her breath as she walked, pulled the sheet a little further one side. Foolish woman! had she stepped with the thunderer’s tread, she could not have disturbed the cold sleeper, covered with that snowy sheet.
Two or three hours after, the door opened and the young doctor entered with a young girl clinging to his arm. She was weeping, and as soon as she caught a glimpse of the white sheet she burst into loud sobs.
“We will relieve you of your watch a short time,” said Arthur; and the woman left the room. He led Helen to the bedside, and turning back the sheet, exposed the venerable features composed into everlasting repose. Helen did not recoil or tremble as she gazed. She even hushed her sobs, as if fearing to ruffle the inexpressible placidity of that dreamless rest. Every trace of harshness was removed from the countenance, and a serene melancholy reigned in its stead. A smile far more gentle than she ever wore in life, lingered on the wan and frozen lips.
“How benign she looks,” ejaculated Helen, “how happy! I could gaze forever on that peaceful, silent face—and yet I once thought death so terrible.”
“Life is far more fearful, Helen. Life, with all its feverish unrest, its sinful strife, its storms of passion and its waves of sorrow. Oh, had you beheld the scene which I last night witnessed in this very room—a scene in which life revelled in wildest power, you would tremble at the thought of possessing a vitality capable of such unholy excitement—you would envy the quietude of that unbreathing bosom.”
“And yet,” said Helen, “I have often heard you speak of life as an inestimable, a glorious gift, as so rich a blessing that the single heart had not room to contain the gratitude due.”
“And so it is, Helen, if rightly used. I am wrong to give it so dark a coloring—ungrateful, because my own experience is bright beyond the common lot—unwise, for I should not sadden your views by anticipation. Yes, if life is fearful from its responsibilities, it is glorious in its hopes and rich in its joys. Its mysteries only increase its grandeur, and prove its divine origin.”
Thus Arthur continued to talk to Helen, sustaining and elevating her thoughts, till she forgot that she came in sorrow and tears.
There was another, who came, when he thought none was near, to pay the last tribute of sorrow over the remains of Miss Thusa, and that was Louis. He thought of his last interview with her, and her last words reverberated in his ear in the silence of that lonely room—“In the name of your mother in Heaven, go and sin no more.”
Louis sunk upon his knees by that cold and voiceless form, and vowed, in the strength of the Lord, to obey her parting injunction. He could never now repay the debt he owed, but he could do more—he could be just to himself and the memory of her who had opened her lips wisely to reprove, and her hand kindly to relieve.