The moon was rising, filling the night with radiance and casting mystic shadows on the earth.
"Turn down the lights, please, little one," he said, "and come to my arms."
Again there was silence. The Doctor came and gave him something and I have always thought there was an anodyne in it.
"How beautiful the moonlight looks and how peaceful! You will remember sometimes, my darling wife, how often in the years that are no more, I have sung to you under its silvery sheen, but my guitar is unstrung and the strings in my voice are all broken and I can't sing to you to-night, and I want to—oh, how I want to sing just one song for, as I hold you close and feel your touch, I seem to hear again the chimes ringing out on our wedding day—our blessed marriage song, 'Believe me, if all these endearing young charms,' and I hear the choir chanting it soft and low in the distance as the minister is saying, 'Those whom God hath joined together let no man put asunder,' and the bands playing the same song as they passed our carriage on the way to the station. I feel the hand of my wife creep into mine, and as the last faint sound of the last band dies away I feel our hand-clasp tighten and hear my own voice singing for my darling, 'Believe me, if all these endearing young charms,' and feel the thrill of our great love."
My Soldier felt my tears. I could not speak. I could only remember.
"Oh, my Lily—my little one—my precious wife! Pass over the dark days as bravely as you can till our boy is safe and then come to husband."
His thought went out to the home in which we had spent so many happy years.
"If I had been at home in our little room within the sight and the sound of the waters below us and the old packet-boat coming by, the birds singing and my own redbird that always came and the mocking-birds, I think husband would have been a long time with you and the little boy. Maybe it is best. I think they must have given me an anæsthetic, though I asked them not to, for I feel as if floating dizzily. Now, little one, let's go to sleep."
