"Well, she has now--all over her face."
"Go to sleep like a good boy. I will not talk to you any more. Good-night."
"Good-night;" and with one little hand under his cheek and the other clasped lightly in his father's, little Frank lay still awhile, and then fell off into tranquil slumber.
For a long time the father sat motionless. He was afraid to stir lest he might wake the little fellow. His mind went back to the evening he had just spent. How bright and cheerful it had been compared with the loneliness and gloom of those evenings with which he had been so long sadly familiar!
What a charming girl that was, and how she had brightened up the whole evening with her enchanting presence! What a home her presence would make! He had admired her as he had seen her on Crawford's Quay with little Freddie, but then she was bending her mind down to a child's level. That night he had seen her among men, the perfect complement of them, and the flower of womanhood. He felt his face, his whole being soften when he thought of her. Even to think of her was to feel the influence of a gracious spirit.
She was twenty and he was only thirty--who knows!
And then his head fell forward on his chest, and he slept. But Hetty followed him into his sleep--into his dreams.
He was walking along a country road in May, dejected and broken-spirited, thinking of the miserable past three years, when suddenly at a turning he met Hetty holding his boy by the hand and coming to meet him. And then, with a laugh, he knew that all these three years which tortured him so cruelly had been nothing but a dream, and that this sweet and joyous and perfect Hetty had been the wife of his young manhood. With outstretched arms and a cry he rushed to meet her.
The cry awoke him, and he looked up.
Between the bed and the wall rose a thin black figure sharp against the white of the wall, and above the figure a pale haggard face dabbled with large red spots like gouts of blood.