"Internal injuries that I can't get at," he muttered, as he drove away.
Miss Eulie came to Gregory's side, and laying her hand gently on his brow said, "You are mistaken, my young friend. You are going to live."
"Why do you think so?" he asked.
"The dying often have almost prophetic vision;" and she told him all that Mr. Walton had said, though nothing of the contemplated marriage. She dwelt with special emphasis on the facts that he had told Annie to be a sister to Gregory and had gone to heaven with the assurance to his old friend that his son would join him there.
Gregory was strongly moved, and turning his face upon the pillow, gave way to a passion of tears; but they were despairing, bitter, regretful tears. He soon seemed ashamed of them, and when he again turned his face toward Miss Eulie, it had a hard, stony look.
Almost with sternness he said, "If the dying have supernatural insight, why could not Mr. Walton see what kind of a man Hunting is? Please leave me now. I know how kind and well-meant your words are, but they are mockery to me;" and he turned his face to the wall.
Miss Eulie sighed very deeply, but felt that his case was beyond her skill.
Daddy Tuggar was at first grievously disappointed. He had wrought himself up into the hope of a celestial scene, and the abrupt and quiet termination of Mr. Walton's life seemed inadequate to the occasion. But Miss Eulie comforted him by saying that "the Christian walked by faith, and not by sight—that God knew what was best, better than we, His little children.
"Death had not even the power to cause him a moment's pain," she said. "God gave him a sweet surprise, by letting him through the gates before he was aware."
Thus she led the strange old man to think it was for the best after all. The Rev. Mr. Ames, who had come on such a different mission, also tried to make clearer what Mr. Walton had said to him. But Daddy Tuggar would not permit his mind to wander a moment from the simple truth, which he kept saying over and over to himself, "I'm an awful sinner, and the good Lord come after just such."