“Oh, there you are,” he said. “Edward is sinking to sleep. How good of you to be so quiet!”
They rose up, and Julian led her to him with her hand in his, and his arm supporting her. “Mr Kennedy,” he said, “I am going to ask you for the most priceless jewel you possess.”
“What? Is it indeed so? Ah, you wicked Julian, do not rob me of Eva yet. She is too young; and now that Edward seems likely to be ill so long—ah, me! I am bereaved of my children. Well, well, I suppose it must be so. Come here, darling, to the old father you are going to desert; I daresay Julian won’t grudge me one kiss.”
He kissed her tenderly, and she clung about his neck as she whispered, “But it will not be yet for a long long time, papa.”
“What youth calls long, my Eva; but not long for those who are walking into the shadow down the hill.”
O happy, happy lovers! how gloriously that night did the stars shine out for you in the deep, unfathomable galaxies of heaven, and the dew fall, and the moon dawn into a sky yet flushed with the long-unfading purple of the fading day! Yet there was sadness mixed with their happiness as they heard, until they parted, the plaintive murmurs of Kennedy’s fitful sleep, and thought of all the sufferings of their brother, and how nearly, how very nearly, he had been hurried from the midst of them by self-inflicted death.