One minute’s close embrace, her tears bedewing his dying cheeks, one lingering hand-clasp of pain, and they parted. Parted for all time. But not for eternity.
“God be with you ever!” he breathed, giving her his solemn blessing. “Farewell, dear Johnny Ludlow!”
“I am so sorry! If you could but get well!” I cried, my eyes not much dryer than Helen’s.
“I shall soon be well: soon,” he answered with a sweet faint smile, his feeble clasp releasing my hand, which he had taken. “But not here. Fare you well.”
Helen hid herself in a turn of the passage till the doctors had gone in, and then we walked down the street together, she crying softly. Just opposite Salt Lane, a fly passed at a gallop. Dr. Leafchild sat in it muffled in coats, a cloud of sorrow on his generally pompous face.
And that was the abrupt end of poor Charles Leafchild, for he died at midnight, full of peace. God’s ways are not as our ways; or we might feel tempted to ask why so good and useful a servant should have been taken.
And so, you perceive, there was another marriage of Helen Whitney frustrated. Fortune seemed to be against her.