The deep blue eyes had acquired a certain quiet which had been absent in the boyish face--the quiet that comes of a burden on the heart; of the certain knowledge that the burden can never be removed. Luke’s life was not the only one that had been spoiled by an examination paper. Examination papers have spoilt more lives than they have benefited. A twin brother is something more than a brother, and Fitz went through life as if one side of him was suffering a dull, aching pain. The face of this man walking alone on the terrace of the House of Repose was not happy. Perhaps it was too strong for complete happiness--some men are so, and others are too wise. This was the face, not of a very wise or a brilliant man, but of one who was strong and simple--something in the nature of a granite rock. Sandstone is more easily shaped into a thing of beauty, but it is also the sandstone that is worn by weather, while a deep mark cut on granite stays there till the end.
Fitz had no intention of going upstairs. He was not a man to take the initiative in social matters. His instinct told him that if Eve wanted him she would send for him. She had cabled to him to bring the doctor. He had brought the doctor, and now he went out on the terrace to “stand by,” as he put it to himself, for further orders. If, as the gossips averred, he was the Señorita’s lover, he deemed it wiser to relinquish that position just now.
As a matter of fact, however, no word of love had passed between them.
Fitz was standing by the low wall of the terrace looking down into the hazy, dim depths of the valley, when the further orders which he awaited came to him.
Hearing a light step on the pavement behind him, he turned, and faced Eve, who was running towards him.
“Will you come upstairs?” she said. “I think he wants to see you.”
“Certainly,” he answered.
She had hurried out, but they walked back rather slowly. Nevertheless, they did not seem to have anything to say to each other.
When they entered the room upstairs together, a faint little smile full of wisdom hovered for a second round the old priest’s clean-shaven lips.
The dying man had evidently wanted something or some one. The old priest knew human nature, hence the little shadowy smile called up by Eve’s transparently partial interpretation of her father’s desire.