"Poor Edith," he mused, "poor Edith. What a wife she has been to me, to be sure! I was fond of her, too. Not as fond as I might have been, of course ... Still, when I think that I shall never again see her face behind the coffee things at the breakfast table it gives me a pang, a distinct pang ... By the bye, I don't suppose she remembered, before all this came on, to send that Sheffield urn to be replated ... But it's all so beautiful—the fire, the draped bed, the waiting figures, the whole atmosphere! Just what she would have chosen to die in; all peace and naturalness. Everything seems to say 'Good-by, Edith; congratulations, Edith; well out of it all,' only much more beautifully. There is a dirge—how does it go?—
Oh, no more, no more; too late
Sighs are spent; the burning tapers
Of a life as chaste as fate,
Pure as are unwritten papers,
Are burnt out—
"That comes somewhere near it; 'a life as chaste as fate'—not a bad description of Edith ... 'Pure as are unwritten papers'—who but an Elizabethan would have dared to cast that line just like that? Let's see; Ford, was it, or Shirley?... If only some one were singing that now, behind the scenes, out by the bathroom door, say, everything would be quite perfect. 'Unwritten papers'—ah, well, people have no business to be as pure as Edith was—and live. But what is to become of my home without her? What will become of the boys? Good Heavens, what am I going to do with the boys? Good little souls—how quiet they are! It all hits them a great deal harder than it does me, I know. It won't be so bad when they're old enough to go off to school, but till then ... I must ask Cecilia's advice; she'll have some ideas, and by the way, I wonder if Cecilia thought to see about that Sheraton sideboard for me?"
And so on, and so on. Hilary Wimbourne's meditations never went very far without rounding up at a Sheraton sideboard or an old Sheffield urn or a nice bit of Chienlung or a new idea for a pleached alley. Let us not judge him. He was that sort of person.
These reflections, and the complete outward silence in which they took place, were at last interrupted by a slight stirring of the sick woman on the bed. For the last time in her mortal life—and for very nearly the first, for the matter of that—Edith Wimbourne was to assume the center of her family stage. Her husband and sons heard her sigh and stir slightly as she lay, and then the doctor and Miss Garver appeared to be busy over her for a few moments. Probably they made shift to force a stimulant between her teeth, for in a moment or two she opened her eyes to the extent of seeing what was about her. Almost the first sight that greeted them was that of her two sons sitting on the arms of their father's chair, and as she saw them she smiled faintly.
The nurse glanced inquiringly toward the doctor, who nodded, and she went over and touched Harry lightly on the shoulder.
"Come over and speak to your mother," she whispered, and Harry walked to her side. Very gently he took the hand that lay motionless on the bed and held it in his. He could not have uttered a word for the life of him.
Either the reviving action of the stimulant or the feeling of the warm blood pulsing through his young hand, or perhaps both, lent a little strength to the dying woman. She smiled again, and ever so slight a flush appeared on her wasted cheeks. "Harry, dear Harry," she whispered gently, and the boy leaned down to catch the words. "I am going to leave you, dear, and I am sorry. I know I should be very proud of you, if I could live ... Be a good boy, Harry, and don't forget your mother."
She closed her eyes again, exhausted with the effort of speaking. Dazed and motionless Harry remained where he stood until the nurse led him gently away to make room for James.
James stood for some moments as his brother had done, with his hand clasped in that of his mother. Presently she opened her eyes once more, and gazed gravely for a moment or two at the face of her first-born, as though gathering her little remaining strength for what she had to say to him.