The boy took a candle from the chimney-piece, lighted it, and in his great fear of the darkness, was accompanied by his father up the stairs. When the white-haired man had enveloped the frail form in the blankets with a woman’s tenderness, he left the light in the chamber burning at its fullest, and returned to the little room. It was then near to midnight.
The massive old tome in which he had been reading was open still upon the table. He knelt before it, pressing his eyes upon the yellow parchments. On the clock in the little room the hands made their tardy circuit: midnight passed; one o’clock; two o’clock; three o’clock. Throughout these hours the man remained thus, not heeding that all about him was darkness; for the lamp and the fire had burned themselves out long ago.
Near to the hour of four a ghostly figure, pale but luminous, crept into the silence of the room. It was the boy, clad in a white gown and bearing a lighted candle. He touched the kneeling figure softly.
“My father,” he breathed; “how you tremble, my father, and how cold you are!”
The man rose to his feet with a slight shiver.
“The fire is low,” he said. “Are we not ever cold when the fire is low?”
“The fire is out, my father,” said the boy.
“Is the fire ever out, beloved,” said his father, “while one ember is still faintly burning? May we not draw it into flame perhaps?”
The man knelt again and breathed upon the embers, so that presently they began to glow.
“I could not rest, my father,” said the boy, “and I grew so afraid of the loneliness that I have come to be near you. I do not think it is raining now, but the wind is speaking bitterly. I wish the stars would shine. I am not so craven-hearted when the stars look at me with their bright eyes.”