There was silence in the room where Death lay waiting. The body of Clara Allardi lay stretched upon a bed in slumber, her wasted hand, blue-veined, marble-white, plucking mechanically at the quilt, her restless voice muttering vaguely of things that had long since passed away; lips that had laughed, pulses that had leaped, hearts that had broken, long, long ago. Death, itself, might have laughed to hear her; but her daughter did not laugh.
Clara's face was blue-veined now and hollow-eyed, but, even so, was lovely; delicately, uselessly lovely, with the flawless pulchritude of a marble statue, the sickening, unearthly hue of ivory. Clara Allardi had been very beautiful in her day, had had her share of the kingdoms of this world and the glories of them; she lay dying in a New York tenement, unloved, uncared-for, an old woman at the age of forty-five.
Nature "red of tooth and claw" is sometimes more horrible in tender mood than in fierce; this riot of delicate colour and tremulous song in the face of grisly Death seemed to Lynn Thayer insulting and indecorous. The tragedy of the breaking day and of the ebbing life gnawed at her heart. She sat silent, watching the dying with hungry eyes that held no trace of personal grief, only a dumb heart-craving for something she had never known.
In the farther end of the room lay a child who slept peacefully, his scarlet lips half-parted in a smile, his delicate arms thrust outside the bed-clothes and half-bared. The long black lashes which lay on the glowing dusk of his cheek; the thickness of the clustering curls which shaded his low brow; the almost insolent regularity of his childish features: all proclaimed him to be Guido Allardi's son. He was an ideal and faithful representative of the old, Italian race to which his father belonged; before the family, ruined and disgraced, had sought refuge in America, many such a face had been seen in the family portrait gallery. Probably none quite so beautiful; beauty such as this child's is rare and the possessors of it are seldom quite human. Perhaps this fact may have given rise to the old Greek myths of the gods descending in human shape and proceeding to the performance of most ungodlike actions.
Lynn's thoughts wandered sometimes to the cot where the boy lay, looking as much out of place in the sordid setting which the room afforded as some strange tropical plant. As she thought of him, her face insensibly cleared. The baby brother of her childhood days had proved a fulfilled delight. As beautiful as in infancy and with the same caressing, clinging ways which had made him so dear to her then, he had justified, to her, her loving remembrance of him. She cherished a hidden thought of which she was half ashamed yet which held a very real sweetness; namely, that, in spite of the long years of separation, the boy loved and clung to her and, as of old, seemed to prefer her society to that of his mother. She failed to realize that the stock of bonbons and toys with which she had provided herself had induced the affection which the child showed so freely; she did not know that he would have left his dying mother with equal alacrity for anyone who would have fed him with chocolates. So little do we comprehend what is passing in the minds of those most near and dear to us; even in the crystal mind of a child there are depths which it is just as well not to probe too deeply.
In the bare and comfortless room where these three were congregated Life and Death were present and one more—Judgment. Judgment, the dread avenger who dogs the steps of Sin. Judgment which, after the fashion of Judgment, would fall most heavily on the innocent head, most cruelly on the undeserving. Could Lynn have looked into the future and seen the awful harvest of corruption which the sleeping child would reap it may be wondered whether she would not have killed him as he lay, out of sheer pity.
Ah, the tragedy of Life! Life that takes from us one by one all the glittering baubles with which she has amused our childish hours—the rose-hued hopes, the crimson loves, the golden ambitions—and gives us in their place—what? The dying moaned as though these thoughts had found an echo in her heart; then lay still, looking straight in front of her with eyes which, though glazed and uncertain, held a certain intelligence.
"Mother—are you better? do you understand me?" asked Lynn very softly, bending over the bed.
Clara Allardi turned her head slightly; her lips moved.
"There was something, something you wanted to say," cried Lynn, desperately. "If you could only tell me now; it will not take long, will it?"