Horace sighed, and fell asleep thinking of Sonia rather than the delights of eternity. The priest slept as soundly. No protest against this charming and manly companionship stirred the silence of the room. The ghosts of the portraits did not disturb the bold cricket of the window-sill. He chirped proudly, pausing now and then to catch the breathing of the sleepers, and to interpret their unconscious movings. The trained and spiritual ear might have caught the faint sighs and velvet footsteps of long-departed souls, or interpreted them out of the sighing and whispering of the leaves outside the window, and the tread of nervous mice in the fireplace. The dawn came and lighted up the faces of the men, faces rising out of the heavy dark like a revelation of another world; the veil of melancholy, which Sleep borrows from its brother Death, resting on the head which Sonia loved, and deepening the shadows on the serious countenance of the priest. They lay there like brothers of the same womb, and one might fancy the great mother Eve stealing in between the two lights of dawn and day to kiss and bless her just-united children.
When they were parting after breakfast, Monsignor said gayly.
"If at any time you wish to disappear, command me."
"Thanks, but I would rather you had to do the act, that I might see you carry out your theory. Where do you go now?"
"To tell Tim Hurley's mother he's dead, and thus break her heart," he replied sadly, "and then to mend it by telling her how like a saint he died."
"Add to that," said Horace, with a sudden rush of tears, which for his life he could not explain, "the comfort of a sure support from me for the rest of her life."
They clasped hands with feeling, and their eyes expressed the same thought and resolution to meet again.