So then the young man took him up very tenderly in his strong arms, and laid the little, tired head upon his breast and carried little Peter away.
Now it happened, strangely enough, that though both Susan Lepage and her husband sat watching by their child's bedside, they neither of them saw the young man with the calm face and shining hair, or heard a word he said. They only saw that the little boy opened his eyes suddenly and seemed to gaze at something with a kind of glad wonder, and that he smiled, and that his dear, little lips moved, and then that he stretched out his hands and laughed joyfully. After that he lay very still.
Susan Lepage waited a moment or two, then she rose and took a candle that stood on the oak chest near the bed's head. Shading it with her hand, she stooped down and looked closely at the child.
'Ah, my little one!' she cried.
She put the candle back again, and coming round the foot of the bed, stood by Master Lepage, with her hand resting on his shoulder.
'My husband,' she said, 'our child will suffer no more. The dear Lord loved him and has called for him. A child has died on earth. A child is born in Paradise.'
There was a long silence. Master Lepage sat bolt upright with his arms hanging down at his sides—more as though he was standing before the general officer on parade, than sitting in the rush-bottomed chair in his own bedroom. The big tears ran down over his cheeks and fell from his moustache on to his blue blouse as thick as a summer shower.
'My wife,' he said slowly, 'our paths have joined at last—joined beside an open grave, but better there than nowhere. There shall be no more silence between us. The God whom you have served so faithfully in time will surely heal the smart of your sorrow. And perhaps He will condescend to listen to the prayers of a foolish, vain-glorious, wrong-headed, old soldier, whom grief and repentance have humbled. Pardon me, my wife. I have been wrong and you right all along.'
Lepage stood up, took her two hands in his, and kissed her.
'Ah, my dear, let us talk only of love and hope, not of pardon,' Susan Lepage answered gently.