She met his perplexed look with a faint, weary smile, and cuddled his hand beseechingly. “That’s all,” she said. “There.... I can’t—tell you any—more—now.... Best—thing—if they never—hear.... I’m—going soon—where—I don’t—know.” She ceased, panting for breath.
He desisted then, for the doctor’s final injunctions came to his remembrance with a pang of regret. He had encouraged her to talk too much already.
Aye—what was the use, he reflected. There was a world of meaning in her answer—too great to be misunderstood. Time, it is true, had wrought curious changes in his wandering life and ways, and both memory and conscience had, to a certain extent, become oblivious to many things; but, in the former faculty, assuredly one period in his history was not included. With a bitter hatred which not even the lapse of over twenty years could quench, he recalled only too well, the pale, sneering face of the virago who had usurped the place of his own gentle mother, and whose animosity had eventually been the means of driving him from home, also.
“Yes,” he mused. This poor dying waif and he probably had much in common.
The girl lay quiet for a long while, and a cheap American alarm clock ticked sharply in the stillness. Presently she turned her face to him again and regarded him earnestly.
“Will—you please—say a—prayer?” she articulated painfully. And, as he hesitated and looked at her in dumb misery: “Won’t you?... even—even—for—such as me?”
A terrible revulsion of feeling shook his strong frame. Who was he, that he should dare to presume to pray for the dying? Fallen sinner though she might be—what was he?... And a vision of his own reckless and irresponsible past seemed to rise up before him accusingly.
“Please,” the weak voice pleaded.
With bowed head and bursting heart he falteringly repeated the only prayer that he remembered—“The Lord’s”—and, with its “Amen,” a solemn, awesome quiet descended upon the little room.
And then—the end came very quickly. She turned her head and looked at him kindly. Her eyes were alight with a great, dreamy happiness, and in their depths he beheld the radiant glory that, passing all human understanding, heralds the near approach of death.