He fancied that her voice sounded strange and faint, and his heart sunk heavily. He wished again that the poor child had never ventured into this horrible trap from which there seemed to be no release but death. But he had already wished it a hundred times before—alas, to no avail!
"Sing," she murmured again, sadly. "See, the light is almost gone, but it will not seem so dreary when you sing."
He said to himself that he would be willing to sing until the last breath left his lips, could he but lighten one pang of the suffering girl whose devotion to him had brought down such a cruel fate upon her head.
So, although his throat was sore, his head dizzy, and his heart like lead in his breast, he sung feebly, but bravely, a song that yesterday she had said she liked. It was sweet; but sad. He had no heart for gay ones now:
"Out in the country, close to the road-side,
One little daisy there chanced to grow;
It was so happy there in the sunshine—
No one the daisy's joy could know;
Watching the white clouds, hearing a song there,
List'ning in wonder all day long.
'Oh,' said the daisy, 'had I a song-voice,
Yonder forever I'd send my song.'
"It was a lark that sung in the heaven,
While all the world stood still to hear,
Many a maiden looked from her knitting,
And in her heart there crept a tear.
Down came the lark and sung to the daisy,
Sung to it only songs of love;
Till in the twilight slumbered the daisy,
Turning its sweet face to heaven above.
"Ah! for the morrow bringeth such sorrow,
Captured the lark, and life grew dim,
There, too, the daisy, torn from the way-side,
Prisoned and dying, wept for him.
Once more the lark sung; fainter his voice grew;
Her little song was hushed and o'er;
Two little lives gone out of the sunshine,
Out of this bright world for evermore."
He paused and looked at her in the dim light. The young face was very pale, the dark eyes hollow with purple rings around them.
"I would give the world, were it mine, for food for this dying child!" he thought, in bitter anguish.
With a languid smile and in childish innocence, she said: