“Divorces are common. Do you understand me now?”
She looked into his eyes and smiled her answer.
When June reached her father’s room she found Scott standing at the head of the bed, gazing sadly into his father’s face. Her mother knelt beside, weeping bitterly, her silver-gray dress sweeping the carpet. June cast one loving glance at the white face with its bright crimson spot on either cheek lying back upon the snowy pillow. The closed eyes and the short, quick breath of the sufferer filled her soul with an agony almost unbearable, and Scott, seeing her grief, drew her in a close embrace, and laying her bright young head upon his shoulder, she wept the bitterest tears she had ever known. A silence reigned throughout the spacious parlors below, and one by one the guests, who had met there in all their joyousness, quietly departed without formality—left the hearts they had found buoyed up with joyful anticipations, now bowed down in deepest grief. Who can portray the sorrow of the heart breaking by the departure of a loved one from life? Paul, unable to control his grief, turned his face away from that of 125 the sufferer, and as he did so his attention was attracted toward Bob, who had perched himself upon the foot of the bed, and in a low, mournful sound called out:
“Good night, good night.”
Mr. Wilmer’s eyes slowly unclosed, and while a faint smile rested on his lips he said in a weak voice: “Good night, Bob.”
The bird, seemingly satisfied, drew his head down and closed his eyes.
“Eva, darling, come a little nearer,” the sick man said, reaching out his thin white hand. “I shall leave you soon.”
A heart-rending sob broke from the lips of the grief-stricken wife.
“Do not weep for me, dear wife. Remember, this life is not all. I am going to a brighter world. I am so weary of this pain, and I would be at rest. The hardest of all is to leave my loved ones. Will you try to meet me? You have been a good wife, and I leave you my blessing. Meet me in that world, where we shall never part again.”
Mrs. Wilmer could not speak, and only heart-rending sobs broke the stillness of that death chamber.