The Prodigal Son

by Sir Hall Caine

But the past was past, and when Oscar asked himself what punishment he could impose upon himself for the future, he heard but one answer. If his ambitions had been the cause of his sin, to bury them would be the true expression of his repentance. He would bury them. He would bury his genius and the expectation of becoming a composer in the grave of the sweet girl he had destroyed, and go through the rest of his life in the drudgery of the nearest duty, eating the bread of affliction in obscurity and remorse.

When Oscar first attempted to carry out this resolution, it was in a scene of such tragic beauty that no one who witnessed it could ever afterward wipe it out of mind. The family had gathered for that last office of love, which makes perhaps the saddest moment of human experience--sadder than the moment of turning away from the newly covered grave, sadder even that the moment of returning to the void and empty home--the moment when the coffin-lid is closed down and the beloved face disappears for ever.

The death chamber was the same that in a better time had been the bridal chamber, but the air which had tingled with all exquisite thoughts of life was now heavy with the hush of death. It was night-time and the same lamp burned under the same shade, while a gilt-edged prayer-book lay in a circle of lighted candles on the little table that stood by the bed. Besides the members of the family, only two persons were present--one of the sewing-maids, who had made the wedding-dress for the cathedral, and had just put the last stitch to the garment intended for a darker house, and a joiner in his shirt-sleeves.

One by one the family approached the bed to take their last look at the burden that lay on it--the Governor with a solemn tread, as if he had been approaching the presence of a king, the Factor with rigid strides and a bewildered stare, and Helga with a nervous step and a furtive glance, as if duty had called her and she wished herself away. But Anna and Aunt Margret moved about the body without dread or ceremony, laying flowers on the bosom and smoothing the soft hair that was dressed down the cheek, as if the dear dead belonged to them by right of nature, and they would give it up to no one until Earth herself, the mother of us all, should claim it for her own.

The man in the shirt-sleeves had stepped forward to finish his task when the Governor held up his hand.

"Wait! Where is Oscar?" he asked, and then Maria, the old housemaid, who had been weeping noiselessly outside the door, was sent to fetch him.

While Maria was away, Aunt Margret went up to Thora and whispered over her:

"My precious, precious pet! You never changed to your stupid old auntie, did you?--not even when she kept your dear baby away from you and your sweet heart was broken! Don't think she didn't love you for all that, my precious. She loved you every minute, my own. And now that she has got your baby she intends to keep it. She will keep it as long as she lives, so don't you ever be troubled about that, Thora. Aunt Margret is going to be a mother to your little girl, and nobody in the world shall ever touch a hair of your darling's head."

It was at this moment that Oscar entered the room, with old Maria creeping up behind him. His pale cheeks and sunken eyes testified to the strength of his remorse, but his step was firm and his whole figure showed intense vitality of will. He carried a bundle of papers in one hand, and they were loose and irregular, as if they had been snatched up hurriedly at the moment he was called. In the utter absorption of his mood he seemed to be unconscious of anybody or anything in the room except one thing--the thing that lay upon the bed--and walking up to it he looked down at the white face and spoke to it as if the dead--and the dead alone--could hear.

"Thora," he said in a calm voice, "these are the only copies of my compositions, and I wish you to take them with you. They were written in hours when your faithful heart was suffering through my fault--when I neglected you and deserted you for the sake of my foolish visions of art and greatness. That was the real cause of your death, Thora, and in punishment of myself for sacrificing your sweet life to my selfish dreams, I wish to bury the fruits of them in your grave. Take them, then, and let them lie with you and fade with you and be forgotten. I will never write another note of music as long as I live, and from this hour onward my ambitions are at an end."