Grandma Markham was dying, but she knew Maddy, and the palsied lips worked painfully as they attempted to utter the loved name; while her wasted face lighted up with eager joy as Maddy’s arms were twined about her neck, and she felt Maddy’s kisses on her cheek and brow. Could she not speak? Would she never speak again, Maddy asked despairingly, and her grandfather replied:
“Never, most likely. The only thing she’s said since the shock was to call your name. She’s missed you despatly this winter back; more than ever before, I think. So have we all, but we would not send for you—Mr. Guy said you were learning so fast.”
“Oh, grandpa, why didn’t you? I would have come so willingly,” and for an instant Maddy’s eyes flashed reproachfully upon the recreant Guy, standing aloof from the little group gathered about the bed, his arms folded together, and a moody look upon his face.
He was thinking of what had not yet entered Maddy’s mind, thinking of the future—Maddy’s future, when the aged form upon the bed should be gone, and the two comparatively helpless men be left alone.
“But it shall not be. The sacrifice is far too great. I can prevent it, and I will,” he muttered to himself, as he turned to watch the gray dawn breaking in the east.
Guy was a puzzle to himself. He would not admit that during the past year his liking for Maddy Clyde had grown to be something stronger than mere friendship, nor yet that his feelings toward Lucy had under gone a change, prompting him not to go to her when she was sick, and not to be as sorry as he ought that the marriage was again deferred. Lucy had no suspicion of the change, and her child-like trust in him was the anchor which held him still true to her in intentions at least, if not in reality. He knew from her letters how much she had learned to like Maddy Clyde, and so, he argued, there was no harm in his liking her, too. She was a splendid girl, and it seemed a pity that her lot should have been so humbly cast. This was usually the drift of his thoughts in connection with her; and now, as he stood there in that cottage, Maddy’s home, they recurred to him with tenfold intensity, for he foresaw that a struggle was before him if he rescued Maddy as he meant to do from her approaching fate.
No such thoughts, however, intruded themselves on Maddy’s mind. She did not look away from the present, except it were at the past, in which she feared she had erred by leaving her grandmother too much alone. But to her passionate appeals for forgiveness, if she ever had neglected the dying one, there came back only loving looks and mute caresses, the aged hand smoothing lovingly the bowed head, or pressing fondly the girlish cheeks.
With the coming of daylight, however, there was a change; and Maddy, listening intently, heard what sounded like her name. The tied tongue was loosed for a little, and in tones scarcely articulate, the disciple who for long years had served her Heavenly Father faithfully, bore testimony to the blessed truth that God’s promises to those who love Him are not mere promises—that He will go with them through the river of death, disarming the fainting soul of every fear, and making the dying bed the gate of Heaven. This tribute to the Saviour was her first thought, while the second was a blessing for her darling, a charge to seek the narrow way now in life’s early morning. Disjointed sentences they were, but Maddy understood them all, treasuring up every word even to the last, the words so painfully uttered; “You—will—care—and—comfort——”
She did not say whom, but Maddy knew whom she meant; and without then realizing the magnitude of the act, virtually accepted the burden from which Guy was so anxious to save her.