"BE PITIFUL, O GOD!"
"O God! to clasp those fingers close and yet to feel so lonely,
To see a light within those eyes that is the daylight only—
Be pitiful, O God!"
—E. Barrett Browning.
Amy Waite walked swiftly down the path which led from Hadwell Heights to Pine Avenue. The night was a cold one; the moon hung bright and glittering in the starlit heavens and the white, still earth seemed to her as cruel as Life, as inexorable as Time. She shivered as she walked and drew her shabby fur more closely around her throat. When would this cruel walk end? When would this crueler interview be over?
She reached her destination at length and rang the bell. General Shaftan had no relatives in Montreal, but his fame and character had won him many friends. Yet he lay dying alone in his handsome house; alone, save for the ministrations of a hired nurse. Mrs. Waite's thin lips curved in a smile more tragic than most tears are as she stood on the doorstep of the silent house while the keen winds blew dismally about her. Alone! What freak had made him send for her at such a time?
A silent man-servant admitted and conducted her upstairs. Amy paused long enough to remove her wraps and, while she waited, the nurse came out from the sickroom and spoke, softly.
"The General is failing fast," she whispered. "He was determined to see you this evening and so I sent you that urgent message. This afternoon he saw his lawyer on business connected with his will and I wanted him to wait till to-morrow for this, but he would not. He seemed to fear that he might not live to see another day." Her voice trembled; she was a kind-hearted soul and the General had a way of endearing himself to all with whom he came in contact. Mrs. Waite, however, stood erect and tearless, and the nurse, after a half-wondering, half-resentful glance, directed her to enter.
"He wants to see you, alone," she said, reluctantly. "But, if any change should take place in him, be sure to let me know at once."
Mrs. Waite gave the required promise and left her. The General lay, half-propped up with pillows; his bronzed face was pale with the pallor of approaching dissolution, but his eyes were the eyes of twenty. Amy's dead youth sprang to sudden life beneath them and something akin to the hopeless, useless rapture of thirty years ago awoke and cried in her heart. Her face was set and pallid, and the hands which clasped the dying soldier's were cold as his own. They looked at one another in silence which the woman could not break. The man spoke at last, a little disappointed at her lack of feeling.
"Well, Amy?" he whispered, half-quizzically.
"You—wanted to see me, Arnold?"