It was a bright sunshiny day, and the light streamed in through the curtained window and fell upon the fair young face as it bent in gentle sympathy over the prostrate and suffering man.
Gertie had been with her grandfather all the afternoon. Much had been said. Gertie had told the old man the simple history of her later life, and how she had heard once that he had gone away never to come back any more.
The old man’s eyes never left the child’s face.
‘You’re rare and like my girl, Gertie,’ he said once—‘rare and like my poor lass! P’r’aps if I’d seen how like you was to her years ago I’d have been the better for it. I didn’t use yer well, Gertie, but it was all fur the best. You’ve been brought up like a lady, and you found good friends. It was all for the best—all for the best.’
Bess came in by-and-by to shift the old man’s pillows, and see if he wanted for anything.
‘Missus,’ said Josh, in the low voice he always spoke now, ‘missus, ask the young master to come in, will you? I’ve summat as I want to say to my gal as I wants yer both to hear.
I carn’t make no will, but there’s things as I wants Gertie to ‘ave, and maybe if you hears what they be, you’ll know it’s all right when I’m gone——’
‘Oh, grandfather, you will get well perhaps!’ said Gertie, her eyes filling with tears.
‘Nay, my lass—I’m goin’ home! Larst night I seed my gal a-sittin’ there, and I knows what that means. They say you allus sees the dead when you’re goin’ to die yourself.’
Gertie said nothing, only in her heart she wondered if her grandfather was fit to die. She longed to ask him if he had asked God to forgive him, but she dared not.