“He begged me not to let them prolong his life. Said it was wrong to hang on, when he had finished his task. He would have a fighting chance, if he had the least recuperative desire. David doesn’t want to get well. He said that death was nothing to be afraid of—after a man had lived.”
“He sees an honourable way out of the hell he has had for thirty years,” Syd muttered, his blue eyes wrathful, his slender hands clenched. “I hope there is a heaven—that he’s so sure of. We know what it would be for him here, chained down to a pair of helpless legs. All his life he has walked away from it, when he had taken all he could endure. It would break Eileen’s heart to see her father—”
Out in the kitchen Drusilla burst all at once into song:
“God moves in a mysterious way
His wonders to perform.
He plants His footsteps in the sea
And rides upon the storm.”
The nurse hurried down to check the stridulous singing, and to say that Mr. Trench wanted to see his two daughters, Judith and Eileen, together. The specialist had said it would do him no harm to talk quietly with his family.
V
At the threshold Eileen asked, her face white with grief: “Judith, did I do this? Am I to blame for his fall? Last night he told Theo that when he was up on that ledge, he saw something. And the pity and horror of it made him lose his footing. The poor baby thought he meant the burning of that ugly gable.”