The old man had been failing fast since the springtime.
The first April showers were quickening the earth when one day Sally found Mrs. Didymus dead in her chair, her Bible upon her knee, her spectacles pushed up on her brow, her dead face turned to where upon the wall hung a faded and discoloured portrait of Martha.
“It won’t be long now,” Mr. Didymus had said to Sidney upon that occasion, and Sidney felt it would be cruel to contradict his hope.
All summer long as Sidney read Vashti’s accounts of the old man’s fluctuating health he had thought of the solemn gladness of the moment when the summons should come. His loins had been girded for months past and now he was to set forth.
He had said to Vashti in a wistful letter, “When the hour comes be sure you send for me yourself. Let it be your personal summons which brings me to your side.” And now such a summons lay before him.
He had no preparations to make. All that required to be done could be arranged afterwards. But, ere he set out for the new life, he had one visit to pay. He had always promised himself that when the hour came he would not taste of its joy till he had gone to the man of whom he had thought during the first gladness of his engagement.
Surely it was a curious thing that a minister of the Gospel should seek counsel of an unlearned agnostic. Nevertheless Sidney went confidently. At each step he took towards his destination he grew more and more ashamed for that he had so long withdrawn himself from this man.
Sidney found him in his old place amid the whirring wheels of the great factory in which he worked. His grizzled hair was a trifle greyer, his strong figure a little more bent; but his clear cut mouth was as firm as ever, his eyes as wistful and eager. They had that expression of receptiveness which so often marks the true sage, who, very wise, is yet always eager to learn.
Between the sliding belts Sidney encountered his delighted gaze fixed straight upon him. The visitor threading his way with difficulty through the maze of machinery to where he stood with such a welcome in his eyes that Sidney’s impulse had been to brave the wheels and go straight.