The light on the stairs showed a pale, tear-stained face, but calm
and composed; and it was in a steady, though hushed, voice that he
said—-
"Can I be of any use?"
"I am sorry to have disturbed you. I only came to see after you.
This is a sore stroke on you, Armie."
"I can stand it better, now. I have given him up to God as he bade
me," said Armine. "It had been a weary, disappointed, struggling
life, and he never wished it to last." The tears were choking him,
but they were gentle ones. "He thought it might be like this-—and
soon-—only he hoped to get home first. And I can give thanks for
him, what he has been to me, and what he will be to me all my life."
"That is right, Armie. John did great things for us all when he
caught the carriage."
"And how is Babie?"
"Poor child, she seems as if she could neither speak nor cry. It is
half hysterical, and I was going to get something for her to take.
Perhaps seeing you may be good for her."
"Poor little thing, she is almost his widow, though she scarcely
knows it," said Armine, coming down with his brother.
They found Babie still in the same intent, transfixed, watching
state; but she let Armine draw her close to him, and listened as he
told her, in a low tender voice of the talks he had had with Fordham,
who had expressed to his young friend, as to no one else, his own
feelings as to his state, and said much that he had spared others,
who could not listen with that unrealising calmness that comes when
sorrow, never yet experienced, is almost like a mere vision.
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