“I wish Lucy could see you without your beard, you are so much like her. And Edmund, too. Wonderful!” repeated she, drawing back for a better look. “And Mr. Poythress, too! Father and son were never more alike. Look!” And she handed him a little broken mirror that hung upon the wall.
She looked at him to see what he thought. And a thrill of terror shot through her heart. She had nursed men before who had been shot through the lungs. She pressed her handkerchief to his lips.
It was soaked with blood.
The door opened softly. “A lady and a gentleman from Richmond,” said the surgeon. “Will you see them now? Yes?”
Charley entered first. As soon as she saw him Mary threw herself upon his breast, and hung upon his neck with convulsive, half-suppressed sobs, then greeted Mrs. Poythress in the same way. Then she ran back to Charley. “He has forgiven me!”
“No, Charley; she has forgiven me. And you came! I knew you would. And she, too!”
Mrs. Poythress, sitting on the edge of the bed, held one of his hands, Charley the other. Mary sat stroking back the chestnut hair. The room was dark; for a little cloud floated across the face of the sun, whose lower edge was just kissing the rim of the hill that rises between Massanetta and the west.
“How is the baby?” asked he, with a faint smile, and gently pressing Charley’s hand. “What did—Alice—name him?”
“Alice left that to me. He was christened—Theodoric.”
“True as steel! I die happy! Charley—my Mary has—forgiven me my selfish anger. If there is any other person—that I have wronged—tell her—my last breath—”