“Thank you,” said he, in a low voice. “I am very grateful. It has done me great good to see him once more. I feel better for it.”
Her heart rose to him, and with a sudden movement she reached out her hand. He took it instantly, and his lip trembled.
“You were very good to me,” he faltered—“you and Richard and Emily. I do not feel fit to come here, and I would not have come again if I had not heard he was dead. I did not feel fit to see him while he lived, but I wanted to see him when I heard he was no more. He was the best friend I had in the world. He did me good. I think I really never loved any one but him.”
“Fernando,” said Muriel, tenderly, “can you not let the past be forgotten? Do not go away from us. Stay here, for we are your friends, and you need to be sustained and comforted. Let us forget all that has happened, and meet happily together now.”
“Thank you,” he replied, sadly. “You are very kind, and I am grateful to you. But I do not feel fit to live near you. I do not deserve your friendship.”
Her lips parted to answer him, but he retreated shaking his head mournfully, and stepping noiselessly from the room, went down-stairs like a phantom, and was gone. Muriel’s head drooped, and with her hands clasped together, she stood musing for a long time.
The hours wore on, and as the time drew near to three o’clock, which was the hour at which they were to bear the dead to Mount Auburn, Muriel went to her chamber to attire herself for the sacred journey. When she came down into the library, all who were to go were there. Her mother, Captain Fisher and his family, Emily and Wentworth, Bagasse, and with him a new comer—his wife, a little middle-aged, brown Frenchwoman, whose eyes were swollen and red with hours of weeping for the dead gentleman who had nursed her husband in his sickness, and helped him and her to meet life as they had never been helped before. Muriel paused a few moments to greet her kindly in her own language, and then went to the body of Harrington.
As she reached the coffined form, illumined by the bright light which filled the room, she saw something on the dark-garbed breast, which brought to her golden eyes the first tears they had known since her hero died. It was the Cross of the Legion of Honor! She knew at once who had placed it there, and a mighty wave of emotion swept through her as she gazed on the old soldier’s great-hearted tribute to the valor of her dead.
For a few moments she stood still, then turning with a sun-flash in her dewy eyes, and her features flushed with generous color, she saw the old Frenchman standing near her, looking with a reverent and sombre visage, and an eye of dark brilliance, on the cross of the Legion.
“It is mush bettair zere zan here,” he said, laying his hand upon his heart, as his eye met hers. “Mon Empereur, he gif me zat wis his own hand, madame. I was young conscrip’ at Ligny, and I take ze standard from ze Prussian. Zen he put on my breast zat cross. I lof it wis vair mush lof, and I will keep it for vair many year till I die. Zen he die—zat is my ozzer self, and I put it on him. It is his right. Ze brave zhentilman, wis his gallantree, his goodness, his mush lof, he lie in ze grave wis ze cross of ze Legion on his breast. Zat is well. It is his right, madame.”