"Why not practice your profession," I hazarded, "and forget some part of your past sorrows in a busy life?"
He leaned forward, looking intently at me and yet beyond. "Ah! lad," he said, as he laid a thin hand upon my wrist, "if you but knew, if you but knew! I tried hard, and then I found I couldn't, and then I gave up trying. There are griefs so great that one cannot lose them until the last sleep. I am not lonely, for I have Her always with me here."
It was best for me to remain silent. He was almost unaware of my presence. I felt he would go on if I did not divert his train of thought.
"Night after night She sits here with me," he pursued; "day after day She is by my side. In spirit the loving companionship I sought is ever mine, and yet, great God, how different!" His face he buried in his hands. In my eyes the tears could not be kept back.
Presently he rose from his seat and moved to the wall next to the parlor. To my surprise, the pressure of his finger against a spot in the wooden door pillar opened up a secret cupboard in the partition. The Doctor reached in and lifted out an arm chair of the same pattern as that upon which I was seated. It was heavy and I jumped to aid him, but he negatived me with a short, sharp twist of his head. As he came into the full light I saw that the chair contained a woman's cloak, one of shimmery gray satin, but now sadly faded and time-stained. Reverently he lifted the cloak and laid it across the back of the chair.
"That's as it was the night she sat there and passed away," said the Doctor.
For several minutes there was no word between us. The Doctor, his mouth twitching, his thoughts far from me, stared intently at the old cloak.
"How I loved her, how I loved her!" he finally murmured. Again he was becoming aware of my presence. "You can't understand, sir, the depth of my devotion. It stood the test of years—it stood even her marriage to another."
Another pause.
"She was the prettiest and merriest child you ever saw," he finally went on. "Had she been an Indian maid they would have called her 'Dancing Sunshine.' But being just a Baltimore girl, with her parents more fond of reading Scott than of any other literature save the Bible, she was named Geraldine. You remember that line in the 'Lay of the Last Minstrel':