At last the colonel came. He had gone straight to Hampstead within an hour after landing in New York, and hearing from Mrs. Tiffe of his son’s illness, and that a telegram to the effect that he was worse had been received that afternoon, he had taken the night train back to the city, leaving Edith at Schuyler Hill, as she was not able to accompany him. Thus it was near midnight when he reached Mrs. Wilson’s boarding-house, and asked eagerly for his son.
“Very bad,—dying we fear,” was the report, and he sped swiftly up the stairs, stumbling in the upper landing over a little figure which sat crying on the floor.
It was Alice who had come down that afternoon to inquire for Godfrey, and on learning of his condition had refused to go home, and lingered outside the door of the room she would not enter lest she should be guilty of an indiscretion, or, perhaps, contract the fever.
Poor Godfrey, how white and ghastly and quiet he was now, as with his eyes shut he lay with his head pillowed on Gertie’s arm, and one of his hands holding to her dress as if afraid of losing her.
Gertie had sat thus for more than an hour gazing upon the pale face she held, her eyes heavy with unshed tears, for she could not cry any more. Her heart ached too hard for that. Godfrey was dying,—her Godfrey,—he said he was the last time he spoke to her, and he had called her his little Gertie, and kissed her hand and bade her stay with him on the ship which was sailing in smooth waters now and was almost at the shore. And he was hers,—her brother, perhaps, but still hers more than anybody else’s in all the wide, wide world.
Alice had sent a message to her: “Kiss him once for me!” but Gertie would not do it. She might, perhaps, kiss a dead Godfrey, but Godfrey living must know when she kissed him, and why, and so she only held his head and wiped the sweat from his brow, and let her own face fall over and touch his for a minute, while she whispered in his ear and asked if he still heard her and knew she was with him.
And it was thus she sat when the colonel came, and going up to his son called him by his name. But there was no response, no sign, and the physician who stood waiting, said:
“He heeds no one but his sister. Speak to him, Miss Schuyler. See if he knows you now.”
Then, over the whiteness of Gertie’s face, there came a flush at hearing herself called Miss Schuyler in the presence of the colonel, but she put her lips close to Godfrey’s ear, and said:
“Godfrey, do you know me yet?”