“It is just a little weakness, mother. You must lie quiet and do nothing. Shall I read to you?”
“No, my dear; I will think a little.”
It was no part of Mabel’s idea to duty to tell her that she was in danger, for there was no past to set straight, no Judge to be confronted. Death was an ending, not a beginning. It was a peaceful Gospel; at least, it became peaceful as soon as the end had come.
So the girl went downstairs once more, with a quiet little ache at her heart that refused to be still.
What a strange and beautiful thing death was, she told herself—this resolution of a chord that had hung suspended for thirty, fifty or seventy years—back again into the stillness of the huge Instrument that was all in all to itself. Those same notes would be struck again, were being struck again even now all over the world, though with an infinite delicacy of difference in the touch; but that particular emotion was gone: it was foolish to think that it was sounding eternally elsewhere, for there was no elsewhere. She, too, herself would cease one day, let her see to it that the tone was pure and lovely.
Mr. Phillips arrived the next morning as usual, just as Mabel had left the old lady’s room, and asked news of her.
“She is a little better, I think,” said Mabel. “She must be very quiet all day.”
The secretary bowed and turned aside into Oliver’s room, where a heap of letters lay to be answered.
A couple of hours later, as Mabel went upstairs once more, she met Mr. Phillips coming down. He looked a little flushed under his sallow skin.