During the next fortnight, Louis and Pinkie met almost every day; for Freddy was sinking fast, and both were assiduous in their attendance upon him. It would seem almost impossible that under such circumstances some of the old childish familiarity should not have revived; but Miss Randolph had profited excellently by her Parisian sojourn. She was perfectly able to be to one of her babyhood’s playmates all sisterly tenderness, at the same moment that to the other she was only icy politeness; for she had thoroughly learned that the whole duty of woman is to make a rich marriage.
Louis did not molest her. He met her coldness with grave, kind courtesy, and treated her so exactly as one whom he had had the pleasure of knowing only a short time, that Pinkie’s girlish heart was hot within her, and she burned to teach him with whom he had to deal. But at present this was impossible, since they never met without witnesses.
For some months, Dr. Richards’s physical condition had been such that there seemed small prospect of his ever again practising his profession, for, though he was able with difficulty to move about the rooms of one floor, he could not walk up or down stairs.
Accordingly he had rented his offices to Edgar Harrison, a calm, determined-looking young man just starting in life as an M.D., who, in addition to the vigorous practice of his profession, displayed quite an astral faculty for being always on hand to intercept Miss Randolph’s comings and goings. Pinkie, of course, turned up her nose at him as a struggling physician; yet, as it would not have done to be unkind to the poor fellow, gave him plenty of smiles, accepted his modest tributes of flowers, and half promised to take a drive with him some day, when Freddy should be better.
It was not long before Freddy was quite well. They were all around him at the last, his mother supporting him in her arms, white as he, but terribly composed; Dr. Richards, in a great chair drawn close beside the bed, held one transparent hand as though he could thus retain the pure spirit that was soon to flutter forth—whither? to annihilation? The father’s clasp was the clutch of despair.
Louis was close upon the other side of the narrow couch, now and again wiping the cold dews from his friend’s forehead. They thought him past speaking; but his eyes were open, watching eagerly, gladly,—what? Louis knew; Louis, who had tried in his babyhood to heal the sick, and in youth had followed the white Form down the wreck-laden river. And it may be that the brightening spirit felt the unspoken sympathy, for slowly the brown eyes and the blue met in a long, loving, comprehending look. It seemed to recall him once more to earth, for the wonderful gaze turned next upon Pinkie, who knelt sobbing at her uncle’s feet.
“Don’t—cry—Pinkie,” he said, gaspingly.
“Freddy!”
It was the cry of a strong man in doubt and agony. Freddy looked in his father’s face with a smile.
“HE will take care of me, father,” he said.
The effort of speaking seemed to exhaust the last remains of his feeble powers; for he lay for some moments with closed eyes; then suddenly they flashed open again, he turned his head slightly upon his mother’s bosom.
“Kiss me, mamma,” he said; and with that kiss upon his lips Freddy fell asleep like a tired child.
It was not, as might have been expected, the mother who seemed to feel most deeply the blow of Freddy’s death. It was true that Alice had no time to grieve, she who was now the only bread-winner. Besides, she had a strong reason for controlling her sorrow, in anxiety for her husband, who sat day after day in the great chair in which he had seen his child die, motionless, tearless, silent—as silent as the grave wherein that child was lying.
What were his thoughts, even the wife who loved him so well did not dare to speculate; but that they were such as, if dwelt upon, would unhinge both thought and reason, she felt very little doubt.
“Can you say anything to comfort him?” she asked of Ernest Clare. “I cannot; his sorrow is too terrible; and I, who have just escaped the hopelessness of it, do not dare to meddle.”
He shook his head sorrowfully. “I will try,” he answered; “that is, if he will see me.”
Dr. Richards made no difficulty about this. “Let him come,” he said; “he’s not as bad as some of his cloth.”
And, in truth, Mr. Clare made no effort to convince the bereaved father that his grief was the punishment of sin; he did not offer to pray with him, neither did he quote a single text; but, after a cordial hand-clasp, sat down quietly beside him, and began the conversation in a low voice, but a matter-of-course tone.
“I am very sorry I was prevented from being with Freddy at the last.”
“It was not your fault,” replied the doctor in a hard, cold voice. “The end came suddenly and unexpectedly, and there was no time to send for you. You had been most kind and attentive; and I am glad to have an opportunity to thank you. I suppose Freddy had all the consolations of religion, whatever they may be worth.”
“They are worth much to me and to him,” said Mr. Clare gently.
The doctor waved his hand impatiently. “I am not up to an argument to-day, Clare,” he said.
“No, I suppose not. You must miss our dear boy at every moment!”
“He was my last patient,” said the doctor with a ghastly attempt at a smile. “I was physician and nurse too, you know, and now my occupation’s gone! I say, Clare, what fools those fellows are who speak of a man’s immortality consisting in his children who live after him, or in some work of his that is remembered. Here am I, getting on towards sixty, who have done nothing, and have no children to carry on my name. It’s a poor old show for my ‘joining the choir invisible,’—eh, Clare?”
“I don’t believe you care very much for that,” said Mr. Clare.
“No, you are right; not when the pinch comes,” said the doctor gloomily.
Mr. Clare was silent; he saw that the man’s heart was full to overflowing, and that, if let alone, he would pour it out in his own way. In a moment or two, the cool sarcastic tones began again as if they were arguing the case of any one else in the world but the speaker.
“I suppose you don’t believe in euthanasia, Clare?”
“As practised upon one’s self, or on some one else?”
“Either, or both.”
“Then, no. In the first case, it is cowardice; in the second, murder. But I should think you could believe in it logically enough.”
“Logic is a delusion, my friend. Logically, I might have spared my poor boy a lifetime of suffering: but, selfishly, I kept him alive months longer than any one else could have done!”
“And you are proud and glad to have done so!”
“Of course! selfishly. And now, look at me! what good shall I ever be in the world again? Why could I not drop a little hydrocyanic acid on my tongue, and join the majority?”
“Fred,” said Alice,—she had been working beside him all the while, but had not joined in the conversation; and now her voice was very tremulous;—“Fred, do you remember your own words to me, when I, believing as you do, declared that I would never outlive, for long, you and our dear boy? Do you remember?”
“Indeed, I don’t, my dear. Some nonsense, I suppose.”
“You told me to live for others, Fred, and in so doing I should find the secret of life.”
“Ah! I hadn’t the rheumatism then,” said the doctor dryly, “nor had I lost my only son,” he added, with a tremor in his voice of which he seemed to feel ashamed, for he went on quickly, “Besides, you miss the point of my arguments, my dear, which is that, in my condition, it is impossible for me to live for others except as a burden upon them.”
“It is impossible for any one to live for others,” said Ernest Clare quietly; “the only possible thing is to live for One other, Who is Jesus Christ.”
“Ah! my wife can follow you there; I cannot,” said the doctor. “It would be a different world if one like Jesus Christ had made and governed it.”
“The mystery of pain, sorrow, and sin,” said Mr. Clare, “I do not wonder that it baffles you; yet one who is a father ought to recognize the chastisements of his Father, I think.”
“Come, now, Clare, would any father inflict such pain as I”—his voice broke irretrievably.
“If it were to bring you to the joy of knowing Him? to purify you and fit you for endless happiness with Him? I think a Father would,” said Mr. Clare.
“The mystery of pain, the secret of life!” said the doctor thoughtfully, having by this time regained his composure. “Well, Alice, if you have solved the one and found the other, I can only congratulate you. It was the task we set ourselves to work out together; do you remember?”
“And He sent pain and grief to help us,” said Alice.
A great light came upon Ernest Clare’s face; he sat quite still for a moment, then rose and knelt beside the doctor’s chair.
“Our Father!” said the rich full voice; then it paused and was utterly silent. Dr. Richards covered his eyes with his hand, and in that silence there rose before him all the meaning of the words that had been spoken. “Our Father!” He had wished to understand why a merciful God allowed pain to exist, and God had sent pain to teach him. Was not that, indeed, fatherly?
Mr. Clare rose from his knees, and left the room without another word, leaving the doctor still sitting with his hand over his eyes.
Religion is a science, and, like all science, empirical. Dr. Richards had made his first theological experiment; and, though the needle had moved ever so slightly upon the dial of the galvanometer, the existence of the current must ever more remain for him an established fact.