"No, no. Go, and get some sleep."
Then, as for a moment she stood, hesitating at the door, longing to escape from that sad presence, yet miserable to go: "Do the best you can for my poor wife," Day said to his friend. "She has been a good wife to me."
She had lived with him for twenty years, and had, perhaps, never heard a word of praise from him before. When at last it came it was too much for her to bear, and she went, sobbing loudly, from the room.
An hour later when the unhappy master of the house had for the last time attended his friend to the hall-door, watched him down the steps into the quiet street, given a silent nod to the other's silent gesture of farewell as he turned to walk down the echoing pavement; when he had put out the gas in the sitting-room and hall, and dragged himself—who can divine with what heaviness of heart?—heavily up the stairs, he came upon a little white night-gowned figure, watching for him on the landing, outside his bedroom door.
It was Deleah who had waited for him there.
"It is only I, papa," she said when he stopped short at sight of her.
"Only your little Deleah that I—I—loves you so."
"Be off to bed, this instant," he said, and pointed an angry finger in the direction of her room.
But she put her arms about his neck and clung to him with stifled sobbing, till with the choke of his own sobbing she felt his great chest heave beneath her clinging form.
When he had flung himself upon the bed beside his wife he was choking and sobbing still, in a fashion dreadful to hear.
"William!" she said timidly, and put a shaking hand upon his shoulder. "Is there anything I can do or say that can help you, William?"