Sir Walter lay in his luxurious bed, where everything was arranged with the perfection of comfort, warmth, softness, lightness, all that wealth could procure to smooth the downward path. He was not in pain. Even the restlessness which is worse than pain, which so often makes the last hours of life miserable, an agony to the watchers, perhaps less so to the sufferer, had not come to this old man. He lay quite still, with eyes shining unnaturally bright from amid the curves and puckers of his heavy old eyelids, with a half smile on his face, and the air of deliverance from all care which some dying people have. He was dying not of illness, but because suddenly the supplies of life had failed, the golden cord had broken, its strands were dropping asunder. The wheels were soon to stand still, but for the moment that condition of suspense did not seem to be painful. There was fever in his eyes which threw a certain glamour over everything about. He had asked that the candles might be lighted, that the room should be made bright, and had called his daughter to his side. Perhaps it was only her own anxiety which had made her suppose that he had asked for Rochford and the papers. At all events, if he had done so, he did so no more. He held her hand, or rather she held his as she stood by him, and he lightly patted it with the other of his large, soft, feeble hands.
“You are looking beautiful to-night—as I used to see you—not as you have been of late. Alicia, you are looking like a queen to-night.”
“Oh, father, dear father, my beauty is all in your eyes.”
“Perhaps, more or less,” he said; “I have fever in my eyes, and that gives a glory. The lights are all like stars, and my child’s eyes more than all. You were a beautiful girl, Alicia. I was very proud of you. Nobody but your father ever knew how sweet you were. You were a little proud outside, perhaps a little proud. And then we had so much trouble—together, you and I—”
She said nothing. She had not attained even now to the contemplative calm which could look back upon that trouble mildly. It brought hard heart-beats, convulsive throbs of pain to her bosom still. She had silenced him often by some cry of unsoftened anguish when he had begun so to speak. But as he lay waiting there, as it were in the vestibule of death, saying his last words, she could silence him no more.
“Something has occurred to-night,” he said, “that has brought it all back. What was it, Alicia? Perhaps your ball; the dancing—we’ve not danced here for long enough—or the music. Music is a thing that is full of associations; it brings things back. Was there anything more? Yes, I think there must have been something more.”
She stood looking at him with dumb inexpressive eyes. She could not, would not say what it was besides, not even now at the last moment, at the supreme moment. All the opposition of her nature was in this. Love and pride and sorrow and the bitter sense of disappointment and loss, all joined together. She met his searching glance, though it was pathetic in its inquiry, with blank unresponsive eyes. And after awhile in his feebleness he gave up the inquiry.
“We have gone through a great deal together, you and I—ah, that is so—only sometimes I think there was a great deal of pride in it, my dear. My two poor boys—poor boys! I might be hard on them sometimes. There was the disappointment and the humiliation. God would be kinder to them. He’s the real father, you know. I feel it by myself. Many and many a time in these long years my heart has yearned over them. Oh, poor boys, poor silly boys! had they but known, at least in this their day—Alicia! how could you and I standing outside know what was passing between God and them when they lay—as I am lying now?’
“Oh, father, father!” she cried, with an anguish in her voice.
“It is you that are standing outside now, Alicia, alone, poor girl; and you don’t know what’s passing between God and me. A great deal that I never could have thought of—like friends, like friends! I feel easy about the boys, not anxious any longer. After all, you know, they belong to God, too, although they are foolish and weak. Very likely they are doing better—well, now—”