“Nonsense!” exclaimed Miss Carlaw. “I’ve set my heart upon it, and I shall be bitterly disappointed if you don’t carry out my wishes. You must be proud of him, and it will take the keenest edge off your sorrow and make you think kindly of him if you go. I am going to have my own way in this, I can assure you. We’ll go down together to the grave of the man you love, for I suppose they buried him there?”
’Linda did not answer. A sudden new thought had come into her head—a thought that brought a quick flush to her cheek and filled her eyes with tears. “It shall be as you wish,” she said after a pause.
The celebration of which the captain had written—the anniversary of Brian Carlaw’s birth—was three days later; the two women went down late on the day before, and secured rooms at the inn at which Miss Charlotte Carlaw had previously stopped. Early the following morning, after they had breakfasted, they set out on foot for the place; for Miss Carlaw had said: “We’ll have no ostentation about the matter; and we’ll get there early, before the other people arrive.”
Their walk was a short one; the old blind woman, leaning on ’Linda’s arm, was led through a gate and then found her feet walking softly on grass; on the sweet summer air the scent of roses was borne pleasantly. “A sweet and pleasant place,” she murmured as they walked on.
They went some little distance farther and then ’Linda stopped. “This is the place,” she whispered. “The man I loved sleeps here.” The arm on which Miss Carlaw leaned seemed to tremble, and she thought that the girl was weeping.
“How very quiet it all is!” said Miss Carlaw in a hushed voice. “I can only hear the twitter of the birds and the rustle of the wind in the leaves. The people, where are the people? Has no one arrived yet? Please remember that I am blind, dear; you must be eyes for me?”
“No; the people are not here; we are quite alone,” said ’Linda.
“But the statue; describe the statue to me.”
“It is a statue that only I can see,” said ’Linda slowly; “ever since he died I have seen it towering to the very heavens, putting me to shame. It is the statue of a great and good man—a man so splendid in one purpose and one hope and one faith that all other men sink into nothingness beside him. And in the eyes—oh, can I ever forget them?—in the eyes there is a light of such love, such goodness, such forgiveness, that they burn forever into my soul, until I try to close my own to shut the light of them out.”
Miss Carlaw, wondering and trembling, made a sudden step forward and stumbled over something; she recoiled and caught ’Linda’s arm. “What place is this?” she whispered. “That was a grave I stumbled upon. Where have you brought me?”