“Ah! he comes only when others sleep,” muttered the old man. “I was here but yesterday and saw him creeping round here, and watching and waiting. And he has drawn you to him.”
“Tell me what you mean!” she cried. “What have you seen?”
He pointed to the statue towering above them through the mist, and lowered his voice to a whisper. “I have seen his spirit—the spirit of him they think dead—come down in lonely hours and wait here for you.”
“Oh, no, no!” she cried, startled. “This is only one of your dreams; people can not come back from the dead. Forget all about it, I beg of you; believe me, it is only one of your dreams.”
For answer he suddenly gripped her arm and pointed, with the hand that had been behind him, in the direction of the statue; she saw that he held something in that hand, although she could not see clearly what it was. “Then what is that?” he cried. “See, there he is, waiting still!”
With a cry he sprang forward and dropped on one knee in the roadway, and pointed with his arm. Another figure had appeared from beyond the statue and was standing before it, looking up at it—the tall figure of a man. While ’Linda glanced from the figure back to the old man kneeling in the roadway, she was stunned by a sudden loud report and a blinding flash that seemed to scatter and drive away the mist; and then, in a moment, the figure before the statue turned swiftly round and stumbled and flung up its arms and fell prone before it. She ran to it and, scarcely knowing what she did, turned it over and looked down at the face. And it was the face of Comethup!
She had a dim, wild, despairing hope that she might be dreaming; that the gray morning and the stone figure at the foot of which she knelt, and the man whose head was propped upon her arm, and the wild old figure standing weeping and beating its breast beside her might all be shadows in a dream she would wake to forget. But when she heard the voice of the man in her arms she knew that it was all true.
“’Linda! God is very merciful—and all the world he builds for us is very, very right—and very sweet. But a moment ago, as I stood there, with nothing to hope for—hold me closer and look into my eyes—I prayed for death. And see—in a moment it comes—swiftly, too. I don’t—don’t understand, but it’s all—all very right, isn’t it?”
“Dear,” she whispered, “can’t we do anything? Tell me—you are not—not really hurt?”
He smiled up at her with the smile she knew and remembered so well. “We must not—must not lie to each other now,” he said, “because there is so little time. I am dying——No, don’t turn your face away; keep your arms tight about me. He did not—did not know; don’t let them—harm him. Quick—there is little time; tell me—why you are here. Have you left her?”