With this dreadful threat the doctor departed. The other gentleman, the Scripture reader, stayed behind, and sat in a chair in the further corner. The poor mother was sleeping heavily. The poor girl who had brought Charles, sat down in a chair and fell asleep with her head on a table.
The dying child was gone too far for speech. He tried two or three times, but he only made a rattle in his throat. After a few minutes he took his arms from round Charles's neck, and, with a look of anxiety, felt for something by his side. When he found it he smiled, and held it towards Charles. Well, well; it was only the ball that Charles had given him——
Charles sat on the bed, and put his left arm round the child, so that the little death's head might lie upon his breast. He took the little hand in his. So they remained. How long?
I know not. He only sat there with the hot head against his heart, and thought that a little life, so strangely dear to him, now that all friends were gone, was fast ebbing away, and that he must get home again that night across the bridge.
The little hand that he held in his relaxed its grasp, and the boy was dead. He knew it, but he did not move. He sat there still with the dead child in his arms, with a dull terror on him when he thought of his homeward journey across the bridge.
Some one moved and came towards him. The mother and the girl were still asleep—it was the Scripture reader. He came towards Charles, and laid his hand upon his shoulder. And Charles turned from the dead child, and looked up into his face—into the face of John Marston.