She spoke very quietly, not at all as if it cost her anything to say it. Indeed, in a sense, it did not. She was willing now to go.
The doctor looked at her gravely.
“Are you able—quite able? I do not think he will need you for a very long time. I am glad you are willing to go, though I never would have urged you to do so, or have blamed you if you had refused.”
In his heart he doubted whether the journey could ever be taken. Days passed and little change appeared. The sick man was conscious when he was spoken to, and answered clearly enough the questions that were put to him by the doctors; but he had either given up, or had forgotten his determination to get home to die. Allison stayed in the place by night as well as by day, and while she rested close at hand, Robert Hume or the faithful Dickson took the watch. She would not leave him. He might rouse himself and ask for her, and she would not fail him at the last. She did not fail him. For one morning as she stood looking down upon him, when the others had gone away, he opened his eyes and spoke her name. She stooped to catch his words.
“Is it all forgiven?” he said faintly.
“All forgiven!” she answered, and yielding to a sudden impulse, she bent her head and touched her lips to his.
A strange brightness passed over the dying face.
“Forgiven!” he breathed. It was his last word.
He lingered still a few days more. Long, silent days, in which there was little to be done but to wait for the end. Through them all, Allison sat beside the bed, slumbering now and then, when some one came to share her watch, but ready at the faintest moan or movement of the dying man, with voice or touch, to soothe or satisfy him. Her strength and courage held out till her hand was laid on the closed eyes, and then she went home to rest.