Willie Munro was naturally a tender-hearted boy, and this strange last letter, with the sight of the calm dead face lying there as if Herbert but slept, so wrought upon his feelings that he threw himself into a rude chair, and, with his hands to his face, wept long and bitterly.
Even the sturdy superintendent of police was visibly affected, and tried to console the boy, but for a time he only wept the more.
He started up at last, and that suddenly too; he dashed the tears aside.
“Come, Sandie, come,” he said, and left the dead-house.
In the outer office he addressed an envelope to Herbert’s parents. The very act of doing so seemed to restore him somewhat. He bade the officer good-night more cheerfully, and with Sandie walked out into the night and the starlight.
. . . . . .
“Sandie,” said Willie next morning, “you’re going home, aren’t you?”
“Yes, certainly, to-day too.”
“Well, I think I could do with another day or two in the country. I want to get out from under the shadow of that dead-house, Sandie, away from the memory of that awful sleeping face.”
“My dear friend,” replied Sandie, “I had meant to ask you to come, though I wasn’t sure you would accept. But now I am delighted.”