And Tom was off in a moment, and the boy had resumed his watering-pot. And that evening he sat down with, for the first time, a tremendous secret at his heart.
There was one grief even in the hope of his liberation. When he looked at poor Mary, and thought how lonely she would be. Oh! if poor Mary could come with him! But some time or other he and Tom would come and take her away, and she would live with him and mammy, and be one of that happy family.
She did not know what thoughts were in the boy’s mind as his sad earnest eyes were fixed on her, and she smiled with a little languid nod.
But he need not have grieved his gentle heart on this account. There was not to be a seeming desertion of his friend; nor anything she could mistake for a treacherous slight.
That morning, at two o’clock, Mary died.
About ten minutes before, an alarm from the old servant, who slept in the room, called up her father.
Her faithful little friend was on his knees sobbing beside the bed, with her wasted hand in his, as the Sergeant-Major, hastily dressed, walked in, and stood by the curtain looking down into those large, deep eyes. She was conscious, though she could not speak. She saw, as she looked up her last look, a few sullen drops gather in those proud eyes, and roll down his cheeks. Perhaps the sad, wondering look with which she returned these signs of tenderness, smote him, and haunted him afterwards. There was a little motion in her right hand as if she would have liked him to take it—in sign of reconciliation—and with those faint tokens of the love that might have been, the change of death came, and the troubled little heart was still, and the image of Willie Fairlace was lost in the great darkness.
Then the little boy cried aloud wildly—
“Oh! Mary, pretty Mary. Oh! Mary, are you dead? Oh! isn’t it a pity; isn’t it a pity! Oh! is she dead?”
The Sergeant dried his eyes hastily. He hoped, I dare say, that no one had seen his momentary weakness. He drew a long breath. With a stern face he closed the pretty eyes that Willie Fairlace, far away now, will never forget; and closed the little mouth that never will complain, or sigh, or confess its sad tale more.