“I'll send you our route, and mebbe you'll be lettin' us know how she is.”
“Indeed I will,” Douglas assured him, heartily.
“You might tell her we'll write ever' day or so,” he added.
“I'll tell her,” Douglas promised earnestly.
“Good night!” The old man hesitated, unwilling to go, but unable to find further pretext for staying.
“Good night, Toby.” Douglas extended his hand toward the bent figure that was about to shuffle past him. The withered hand of the white-faced clown rested in the strong grasp of the pastor, and his pale, little eyes sought the face of the stalwart man before him; a numb desolation was growing in his heart; the object for which he had gone on day by day was being left behind and he must stumble forth into the night alone.
“It's hard to leave her,” he mumbled; “but the show has got to go on.”
The door shut out the bent, old figure. Douglas stood for some time where Toby had left him, still thinking of his prophetic words. His revery was broken by the sounds of the departing wagons, the low muttered curses of the drivers, the shrieking and roaring of the animals, as the circus train moved up the distant hill. “The show has got to go on,” he repeated as he crossed to his study table and seated himself for work in the dim light of the old-fashioned lamp. He put out one hand to draw the sheets of his interrupted sermon toward him, but instead it fell upon a small sailor hat. He twisted the hat absently in his fingers, not yet realising the new order of things that was coming into his life. Mandy tiptoed softly down the stairs. She placed one pudgy forefinger on her lips, and rolled her large eyes skyward. “Dat sure am an angel chile straight from Hebben,” she whispered. “She done got a face jes' like a little flower.”
“Straight from heaven,” Douglas repeated, as she crossed softly to the table and picked up the satchel and coat.
“You can leave the lamp, Mandy—I must finish to-morrow's sermon.”