Alone with her, I sat for minutes, hours, eternities, it seemed, and every lovely feature of my Mamie Rose became forever engraven upon my mind and heart. My right hand was resting on hers, my left was hanging motionless by my side. Something rubbed against it. It was Bill, and all he had been to me was forgotten. No one, not even he, had a right there.
Again the beast flared up, and for the first and last time my Bill felt the brutal force of my wrath. He returned defiantly from the corner where he had landed and spoke his valid claim:
"I have a right here, Kil. You loved her, so did I, and I can understand your sorrow."
I let him stay, and through that bitter night man and dog kept their silent vigil beside the bier of her who had loved both.
Perhaps I was wrong to profane the quiet chamber by the presence of my Bill, but I know she would have sanctioned it—we three were square, honest comrades.
With the coming of the same sun whose going she and I had watched only a few hours ago, came saner, holier thoughts. A message seemed to float to me from her sacred lips.
I knelt and prayed, "Thy will be done."
* * * * *
Spare me telling you where, how and when she was buried. What difference does it make to you how she went her last journey, never to return in the flesh? Whether we had her buried in mountains of her favorite flower or sent her away in the pine box of the pauper, is of no consequence to you. She was nothing to you, she was mine, all mine; in life or in death, on earth or in heaven.
* * * * *