“I am very tired, leave me now, but bring Roy in presently, I must tell him I am going.”
Very reverently the Doctor took her hand, and kissed it.
“You may kiss me now,” she said dreamily, “it is all that I can give you.”
Halley rose from his knees, and the blinding tears fell freely as he bent over that sweet face, which he had loved so dearly without hope of reward. He gently kissed her forehead, as one might a little sleeping child, and hurried from the room, for he knew the time was short. He found the boy in the garden among the roses for which he had all his mother’s passionate affection.
“Roy, my boy, you must be very brave as you know an English gentleman should be. Your mother is very ill, and you must go to her at once, I am afraid she will not be very long with us now.”
The boy turned pale. “Do you mean she is going to die, Uncle?” he said in an awestruck voice, face to face with the grim terror for the first time in his life.
“Yes, I am afraid so, but it is in God’s hands.”
“But, you are a Doctor, can’t you do something?” he protested with something of his Father’s fiery impatience.
“It is because I am a Doctor that I know,” was the quiet reply, “come we will go to her.”
But when they entered the room where she was lying, another visitant had been there first, and on her sweet face was an expression of such peace as neither had seen before. It was as though the long separation were over and a joyful reunion had come.