“Hi left ’er with a ’eavy ’eart,” said Wilfred, “but still ’oping. Ho, Hi sy, ’ere is somethink she sent you.”
The boy produced his little pocket-book and Burton struck a match, for the shop lights were off and the street was in partial darkness. Presently the lad located a little torn piece of printed paper.
Burton took it curiously. “Why, that’s only a scrap of paper,” he said.
“That’s wot she sent. ‘Give ’im that,’ she said, ’an’ tell ’im hif ’e lives Hi look for ’im back to stand ’is trial.’”
“Hold a match!” cried Burton, excitedly. “Here, strike this and hold it.”
The flame sputtered for a moment, then grew into a steady little light, and Burton placed the scrap of paper where the rays fell to the best advantage. And his eyes rested on the printed words:
“Build thee more stately mansions, O my soul,
As the swift seasons roll!
Leave thy low vaulted past!
Let each new temple, nobler than the last,
Shut thee from heaven with a dome more vast,
Till thou at length art free,
Leaving thine outgrown shell by Life’s unchanging sea.”
[CHAPTER XVIII—RIGHT ABOUT FACE]
| “Oh, can I doubt the Power that leads You safe from zone to zone, Is mindful of the man He made In image of His own; That though we blindly breast the gale, Or skirt the shores of Time, Our Pilot knows the track we take, And guides from clime to clime?” The Empire Builders. |
Burton sprang to his feet.