Death was very near Michael O'Connor at that moment; it hovered over his bed, waiting every moment with thin, outstretched hands to snatch him away. On his bed he lay, his face waxen in colour and emaciated, while the white hands clasped the crucifix. Yet even then one might realise that the dying man had at one time been called "handsome Mike O'Connor." In the prime of his manhood—tall, broad-shouldered, and always cheerful—no other man in the district could look anything but insignificant beside him. But many a one from among the Irish farmers knew that he came of a line always noted for beauty. Men and women, the O'Connors had rarely failed in good looks, and as rarely succeeded in keeping their money. The dying man was, after all, the inheritor of his ancestors' virtues and failings.
The candles were lighted by the bedside. Father Healy, with Kathleen and Desmond, knelt on the floor reciting the prayers for the dying. The children were crying, Kathleen impulsively and without restraint, Desmond secretively, as men are accustomed to weep. The sick man's breathing came more slowly and weakly, his lips framed an occasional act of contrition which he was too feeble to utter. When the end came, it was a gentle transition from life to death. Through it all the old clock on the bedroom mantelpiece, dark-stained, and of a quaint design, ticked on as it had done ever since Desmond could remember. Symbolic it seemed of the world, that heeds not death; but moves, always onwards, replacing each one as he dies.
They clothed him in the brown habit, and placed him in the coffin, with the crucifix on his breast. There his many friends came to pray for him—men, women, little children, among them the good nuns, to whom he had always been a benefactor. It may safely be said that Michael O'Connor had not left one enemy behind him. If his life had been something of a failure, the man's death was a complete success.
But there were the children to think of, Kathleen and Desmond, inheritors of his good looks, but of nothing beyond that. Left young in the hands of a careless, happy-go-lucky father, who had always religiously applied the text of Scripture, "Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof," what were they to do for themselves? Desmond could draw and paint; he had the usual smattering of knowledge to be obtained in an ordinary school. Beyond these accomplishments and his father's gift for writing, the big, handsome, curly-haired fellow, half man and half boy, had nothing wherewith to fight the world.
"Writing for him, I suppose?" suggested Father Healy, as he and Dr. Marsh drove out in the doctor's gig to interview the O'Connors.
Dr. Marsh grunted, as was his way. He never had paid much attention to Desmond O'Connor. His opinion of the boy was that a battle with the world would do him nothing but good.
"Whatever he can get. If he does that well, he may begin to pick and choose," he said. "But Kathleen needs consideration."
Kathleen O'Connor was undoubtedly the doctor's favourite. She was such a sweet girl, beautiful in face, gentle in her manners. In her black dress she had looked so fragile and broken with grief on the day of her father's funeral. Vainly trying to maintain composure, yet shaken constantly by an involuntary sob, she had marvellously affected the tough old doctor, to whom female beauty appealed, although he affected to scorn it.
"The girl is beautiful," he said, "and it's a dangerous gift with weakness."