“I could not stay away any longer. I tried to sleep, but,” she was beginning; but the words died upon her lips. “Oh! he is not better, he is worse,” she exclaimed, catching sight of the baby-face, and reading in Mr. Guildford’s quiet sadness the confirmation of her terror. “Oh! my darling, my dear, dear little Charlie.”
The anguish of her tone was unmistakable; still, by a supreme effort of self-control, she forced herself to speak quietly. “Will he not know me when he wakes?” she whispered to Mr. Guildford.
“He will never wake to consciousness again; all his suffering is over,” said Mr. Guildford very gently, but Cicely interrupted him with a faint cry. “What is that? He has never looked like that. Oh! is that dying?” she sobbed—a slight convulsion had momentarily distorted the exhausted little frame.
“It does not hurt him, he feels no pain. It is far sadder for you than for him,” said Mr. Guildford, wishing he could spare her this ordeal.
But it was not protracted; soon, very soon there was no little Charlie lying there; only the deserted dwelling in which his innocent spirit had sojourned for four short years.
Then the young girl could no longer restrain her grief. The incentive to self-control was gone, the unnatural strain broken at last. She was weakened by her days and nights of watching, and such sorrow as this was new to her. She laid her head down on the pillow beside the still white face of the child she had loved so dearly, and cried as if literally her heart was breaking. She was not a girl who cried often or easily, and to such natures extreme emotion from its very rarity is terribly prostrating. Mrs. Moore took the commonplace view of the matter.
“I never saw Miss Cicely like this,” she said, “but it is better she should cry. It will do her good in the end; will it not, sir?”
“I don’t know about that,” said Mr. Guildford. “If she seldom cries, she will be sadly exhausted by this. There is a good deal of nonsense talked about tears. To some natures they are like drops of blood.”
He made one or two efforts to persuade her to come away, but for some time it was useless.
“Oh! do let me stay here a little,” she prayed. “There is no need to tell any one yet. There is nothing to do. I must not cry to-morrow, for it would distress my father and mother; but do leave me for tonight. And, oh! to-morrow, I must write and tell Amy. Oh! how can I? Her little Charlie that I was to take care of till she came back. And now I can never do anything for him again. I even put on this dress to please him this morning, or was it yesterday morning?” she said confusedly, lifting her head suddenly and looking up in Mr. Guildford’s face with an almost wild expression in her blue eyes. “He was so fond of it, he called it my picture frock. I shall never, never put it on again. I should like never to see it again. Oh, Charlie!”