Daybreak
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Chapter XV.
"The Coming Of The Messenger."
All through that terrible day, the two staid by Mr. Granger's bedside, holding his hands, cooling his fevered face, and watching for a sign of consciousness that came not. At evening there was a struggle, short but sharp, and before they had breathed forth the breath they caught as he started up, the soul had broken loose, and a lifeless form sank back upon the pillow.
Do they listen to us when they are gone? Could he, in the first surprise of sudden freedom, hear the cry, like that of a bereaved Lear, that sought to follow him, "Oh! stay a little!" or the weeping testimony of the other, "There stopped the noblest, kindest heart that ever beat"?
But, listen though he might, from one he heard no word of mourning or appeal after that. Since he was happy, and had no longer any need of her, and since she had done all in her power to do for him, she could now remember herself. That his humiliating offer of an empty hand had been kindly meant, did not lessen her resentment, but rather increased it. However confident he had been that his interpretation of her perfectly frank conduct was the true one, he should never have allowed her to know it, she said. Her heart seemed hardened toward him, and all her friendship dead. "How I have wasted myself!" was the bitter comment with which she turned away from taking her last look at him.
More than once, in the first days of their loss, that fiery anger of an insulted heart broke forth. On their way home, as she sat on the steamer-deck at night, slowly touching bead after bead of her rosary, not praying, but waiting for a prayerful feeling that might come, there came, instead, a recollection of the year before. It rose and painted itself, like a picture, between her and the wide, cool shade and sparkle of midnight sea and sky. There was the home parlor, the window where she sat that day after her retreat was over, so happy, half with heaven and half with earth, the curtain fanning her, the vines swinging in and out in the light breeze. She saw Mr. Granger come to her side and drop a rosary into her hands, saw the silver glitter of his pretty gift, and heard the words that accompanied it, "And indeed, it should have been of gold, had not Jupiter been so poor."
The words caught a new meaning as she recollected them.
"If not gold, then nothing!" she exclaimed; and, leaning over the rail, flung his gift as far as she could fling it out over the water.