about 4 of the afternoon my father, who had lain for some hours in a state bordering on stupor, and whose breathing had latterly become harsh and difficult, rose suddenly in his bed and called to me in a strong voice. i was by his side in a moment and lifted him up as he signified i should do. a mortal whiteness was in his face and i saw the end was approaching.
“i have no fear,” he said, in a sort of sick ecstasy. “i can be true to myself at the last, thank god! the soul triumphs over the body.”
he swayed in my arms, clutched at me and dragged himself erect again.
“my brain—my brain! something seems to swerve in it! quick! before it’s too late!”
he held on to me. at the last moment the latent determination of his character trod weakness under and proved the soul masterful. with all his functions withering in the blighting breath of the destroyer, his spirit stood out fearless and courageous, a conqueror by its mere individuality.
it had darkened early, and candles were lighted in the room and the blind pulled down. outside the wind tore at the crazy lattice, or, finding entrance, moaned to and fro in the gusty passages. it threatened to be a night of storm and sweeping rain. and all its wild and dismal surroundings were in keeping with the ghastly figure lying against me. yet, if there was one in that lonely chamber who shrunk and feared, it was i, not that other so verging on his judgment, with so many and such heavy responsibilities to answer for. god forgive him!
“i triumph, renalt,” he said, feeding the effort of speech with quick, drawn gasps. “this later craven has never been i—i was strong to carry out a purpose, even if it led me to the gallows. some white-livered devil usurped. out with the worm at last! i triumph and abide by that i did in the righteousness of wrath. but you—you! let me say it—quick—i was fast on the coward grip. oh, a bitter, bitter curse on the treacherous beast who unmanned me! only to you, renalt, i pray and ask for pardon. i thought—all the time—i had killed the boy—the braces—i never knew. he—he, that reptile, suggested—perhaps modred had—found and kept the cameo. i went up blindly—came down blindly—i was drunk—bestial—i could remember nothing.”
he moaned and would have clasped his hands to me but for weakness. at the last the paralysis of his limbs had departed and he could move. disease loosened its clutch, it seemed, in the presence of the death it had invoked.
“renalt—i remembered nothing—but i feared—and, fearing, i saw the odium rest on you and did not speak. it was i gave you to that living death—i who submitted to that fiend’s dictating, because he struck at me through the sordid passion that had mastered my better nature. renalt——”
“father—hear me! am i speaking distinctly? listen. i forgive you all.”
it seemed as if a flush passed across his face. he pressed my hand feebly and dropped his head.
“now,” he muttered; “come the crash of doom! to all else i am ready to answer. call the——”
like a glass breaking, his voice snapped and immediate silence befell. he had not stirred in my arms; but now i felt the whole surface of his body moving, as it were, of itself with a light ruffling shudder.
suddenly he seemed to shrink into himself, rather than away from me, so that he cowered unsupported on the bed. i fell back and looked at his face. his head moved softly from side to side, the eyes following something, unseen of me, hither and thither about the room. in a moment they contracted and fixed themselves horribly on one point, as if the things had come to the bed foot and were softly mounting it. in the same instant on my dull and appalled senses broke the low booming voice of the wheel circling in its black pit far below, and i knew that in the phantom sound no material force spoke, but that the heart of the dying man was transmitting its terrors to me.
then i saw my father sink slowly back, drawing, as he did so, the sheet up and over his face, as if to shut out the sight, and all the time the convulsive fluttering of my own breath alone stirred the tense silence that reigned about us.
i must have remained in this position many minutes, fixed and motionless in a trance of fear, when the stealthy noise below seemed to cease suddenly as it had begun. at that i leaped to my feet with a strangled cry and tore the bedclothes away from the face. the eyes stared up at me as if i were the secret presence; the jaw was dropped; the whole body collapsed and sunk into the sheets. he had died without a sound—there—in a moment; had died of that that was beyond human speech; of something to which no dreadful human cry could give expression.
* * * * *
wading near knee deep in the flooded meadows, sense and reason returned to me by slow degrees. then a wan streak of sunrise gaped like a dead man’s wound on the stormy horizon, and a new day was breaking to wind and deluge that seemed endless.
ah, surely i had been tried beyond mortal endurance. so i thought, not knowing what was yet to come; what tension the soul’s fetters can be put to without breaking.
the sodden day broadened and found me still wandering. once during the morning i crept back to the house of terror, and, standing without its door, summoned the old woman, who had come of herself to attend to dead peggy’s laying out, and told her of my father’s death and directed her to a second task.
later in the day, i told myself, i would return; by and by when the dead should be decently composed for rest and their expression should have resumed something of its normal cast. then i hurried forth again and sought forgetfulness in the keen rush of air and wide reality of the open country.
walking, resting on some gate or stile; seeking a wayside tavern for food and drink—always i kept steadily away from me the slightest reflection on any of the last words spoken by my father. i could not bear that my thoughts should so much as approach them. i had greatly suffered, been greatly wronged, yet let my mind dwell insistently on the thought that these evils were of the past, never more to vex me out of reason should i look steadily forward, shutting my ears, like the prince in the fairy tale, to the spectral voices that would fain provoke me to an answer.
it was growing near that dusky period of the short day when if one lifts one’s eyes from the ground the sky seems closing in upon the earth! worn out and footsore, i had rounded toward the city from its eastern side and was traversing the now lonely stretch of by-path that leads from the station, when i saw a woman and little child going on in front of me haltingly. as i came up they drew aside to let me pass, and i cried out, “zyp!” and stopped in astonishment and a little fear.
she faced round upon me, breathing quickly, and put one hand to her bosom in a startled manner that was quite foreign to her.
“renny,” she whispered, with a fading smile on her white face—pitiful heaven, how white and worn it had become! and burst into tears the next moment.
shocked beyond measure at her appearance, her woeful reception of me, i stepped back all amazed. she mistook my action and held out an imploring arm to me. the little weird girl at her side half buried herself in her mother’s skirts and peered up at me with deep eyes set in a tangle of hair.
“renny!” cried zyp; “oh, you won’t throw me off? you won’t refuse to hear me?”
“come away,” i said, hoarsely; “to some quiet road, where we can talk undisturbed. you are not too tired?”
“too—oh, i’m wearied to death. why not the mill? renny, why not the mill?”
“zyp, not now—not at present. i’ll tell you by and by. see, i’ll take the little girl on one arm and you can cling to the other.”
she pushed the child forward with a forlorn sigh. it whimpered a little as i lifted it, but i held it snug against my shoulder, and its soft breath on my cheeks seemed to melt the hard core of agony in my brain.
soon i had them in a quiet spot and seated upon a fallen log. there, holding the child against me, i looked in the eyes of the mother and could have wept.
“zyp, zyp! what is it?”
a boisterous clap of wind tumbled her dark hair as i spoke. what was it? her lustrous head was strewed with ashy threads, as if the clipping fate had trimmed some broken skein of life over it; her eyes were like fathomless pools shrunk with drought; an impenetrable sorrow was figured in her wasted face. this was the shadow of zyp—not the sweet substance—and moving among ghosts and shadows my own life seemed stumbling toward the grave.
