“Thank you,” said Lord Ashden, opening the door to allow the physician to pass through; and as the latter went downstairs he heard the door close again, and the sound of a key turning in the lock.
“Poor fellow!” the busy surgeon said, as he buttoned up his coat and went briskly down the steps, “poor fellow!”
Toward noon of that day Philip began to come out of the kind of stupor in which he had lain all night. He smiled faintly at Aunt Delia as she leaned over the bed, and tried to speak, but he was too weak, and presently he closed his eyes again. He suffered a good deal from the burns, which quite covered his hands and arms, and as night came on again he grew restless and feverish, talking incoherently and sometimes starting up in bed; once he thought the manager was calling him to go upon the stage and play.
“In a moment!” he cried, and then he lay back upon the pillow, smiling. “They are clapping,” he whispered; “they like my music, I think, and I am glad—for Lord Ashden’s sake.” After that the pain grew worse, and he tossed restlessly about on the bed, sometimes moaning, and muttering indistinctly to himself; now and then the watchers caught a word.
“All ready, sir! Is it my turn to go on? Are they all there, Aunt Delia, Lord Ashden, Miss Acton? All but Marion, I don’t see her. Wouldn’t she stay to hear me play? Oh, yes, there she is, sitting between Miss Acton and Lillie, dear little Lillie! I must play my very best to-night.”
It was the concert—always the concert; once when he lay so quiet that they thought he was asleep, there was a distant sound of the barking of a dog. “Dash!” he exclaimed, opening his eyes, and he made them understand that he wanted to see his favorite. Aunt Delia hesitated, but the nurse nodded her head, and the little dog was sent for from a distant part of the house where he had been confined, an unwilling captive. The poor little fellow seemed to realize that something dreadful had happened, and when he was brought to Philip’s bed he neither fidgeted nor barked, but remained perfectly quiet, his dumb, loving soul looking out of his bright eyes. Philip tried to hold out his poor bandaged arms, and they laid the dog gently beside him; it was very touching to see the joy of both; Dash crawled as closely as he could to Philip’s side, and the boy lay looking at him with a faint smile of perfect satisfaction. “Dear little Dash!” he murmured, and then he closed his eyes again. That night he grew much worse, and Lord Ashden, pacing restlessly about in the adjoining room, covered his ears to shut out the sound of groans and feeble cries which pierced his great loving heart like sharp knives. He was trying with all his might to reconcile himself to the thought of giving up the dear child who had wound himself so closely around the strong man’s affections. “She was taken from me,” he moaned “and God knows I loved her; and now he is going too, and he is all I have—all I have.”
Not once or twice, but many times, during the night Aunt Delia stole in to comfort him; her heart, too, was very near to breaking, but she had learned to say, “Thy will be done,” and her sweet wrinkled face, on which were the traces of recent tears, wore a look of peace and resignation which Lord Ashden observed with wonder.
“Why should God punish us in this way?” he said once, and his companion laid her fingers gently on the rebellious lips.
“Hush!” she said; “do not say that, dear friend; when, three years ago (it seems but yesterday), you came to us and asked that you might take Philip to Italy, it was very hard to give him up, yet his uncle and I knew that it was for the boy’s best good; we said ‘Go’ when our hearts were murmuring ‘Stay.’ Would it not have been selfish to have kept our Philip by our side in the narrow circle of our love and care, when before him lay the chance of the life of Italy and the musical training which he so needed and wished for? And now, dear, dear friend, think a moment; may it not be something the same way now? Surely our Heavenly Father knows what is best for our darling, when He would take him from our clinging arms into the fuller life of light and love.”
She paused and laid her hand with the most caressing tenderness upon the bowed head of her companion.