“Take her hand,” he said to me.
I too knelt.
Her hand lay cold in mine.
After a long interval he spoke to me.
“Bernard Winterfield,” he said, “love them, and help them, when I am gone.”
He laid his weak hand on our hands, clasped together.
“May God protect you! may God bless you!” he murmured.
“Kiss me, Stella.”
I remember no more.
As a man, I ought to have set a better example; I ought to have preserved my self-control. It was not to be done.
I turned away from them—and burst out crying.
The minutes passed.
Many minutes or few minutes, I don’t know which.
A soft knock at the door aroused me.
I dashed away the useless tears.
Stella had retired to the further end of the room.
She was sitting by the fireside, with the child in her arms.
I withdrew to the same part of the room, keeping far enough away not to disturb them.
Two strangers came in and placed themselves on either side of Romayne’s chair.
He seemed to recognize them unwillingly.
From the manner in which they examined him, I inferred that they were medical men.
After a consultation in low tones, one of them went out.
He returned again almost immediately, followed by the gray-headed gentleman whom I had noticed on the journey to Paris—and by Father Benwell.
The Jesuit’s vigilant eyes discovered us instantly, in our place near the fireside.
I thought I saw suspicion as well as surprise in his face.
But he recovered himself so rapidly that I could not feel sure.
He bowed to Stella. She made no return; she looked as if she had not even seen him.
One of the doctors was an Englishman.
He said to Father Benwell:
“Whatever your business may be with Mr. Romayne, we advise you to enter on it without delay.
Shall we leave the room?”
“Certainly not,” Father Benwell answered.
“The more witnesses are present, the more relieved I shall feel.”
He turned to his traveling companion.
“Let Mr. Romayne’s lawyer,” he resumed, “state what our business is.”
The gray-headed gentleman stepped forward.
“Are you able to attend to me, sir?” he asked.
Romayne, reclining in his chair, apparently lost to all interest in what was going on, heard and answered.
The weak tones of his voice failed to reach my ear at the other end of the room.
The lawyer, seeming to be satisfied so far, put a formal question to the doctors next. He inquired if Mr. Romayne was in full possession of his faculties.
Both the physicians answered without hesitation in the affirmative.
Father Benwell added his attestation.
“Throughout Mr. Romayne’s illness,” he said firmly, “his mind has been as clear as mine is.”
While this was going on, the child had slipped off his mother’s lap, with the natural restlessness of his age.
He walked to the fireplace and stopped—fascinated by the bright red glow of the embers of burning wood.
In one corner of the low fender lay a loose little bundle of sticks, left there in case the fire might need relighting.
The boy, noticing the bundle, took out one of the sticks and threw it experimentally into the grate.
The flash of flame, as the stick caught fire, delighted him.
He went on burning stick after stick.
The new game kept him quiet: his mother was content to be on the watch, to see that no harm was done.