Irving made no reply, except to chafe the hands which clasped his so
tightly, and the doctor continued: "I am surely dying--I shall never see her more, or my boy, my beautiful
boy. I was a brute in the cars; you remember the time. That was Adah,
and those little feet resting on my lap were Willie's, baby Willie's,
Adah's baby."
The doctor's mind was wandering now, and he kept on disconnectedly: "She's been to Europe with him. She's changed from the shy girl into a
queenly woman. Even the Richards line might be proud of her bearing, and
when I'm gone, tell her I said you might have Willie, and--and--it grows
very dark; the noise of the battle drowns my voice, but come nearer to
me, nearer--tell her--tell Adah, you may have her. She needn't mourn,
nor wait; but carry me back to Snowdon. There's no soldier's grave there
yet. I never thought mine would be the first. Anna will cry, and mother
and Asenath and Eudora; but Adah, oh Lily, darling. She's coming to me
now. Don't you hear that rustle in the grass?" and the doctor listened
intently to a sound which also caught Irving's ear, a sound of a horse's
neigh in the distance, followed by the tramp of feet.
"Hush-sh," he whispered. "It may be the enemy," but his words were not
regarded, or understood.
The doctor was in Lily's presence, and in fancy it was her hand, not
Irving's which wiped the death-sweat from his brow, and he murmured
words of love and fond endearment, as to a living, breathing form.
Fainter and fainter grew the pulse, weaker and weaker the trembling
voice, until at last Irving could only comprehend that some one was
bidden to pray--to say "Our Father."
Reverently, as for a departing brother, he prayed over the dying man,
asking that all the past might be forgiven, and that the erring might
rest at last in peace.
"Say Amen for me, I'm too weak," the doctor whispered; then, as reason
asserted her sway again, he continued: "I see it now; Lily's gone, and I
am dying here in the woods, in the dark, in the night, on the ground;
cared for by you who will be Lily's husband. You may, you may tell her I
said so; tell her kiss my boy; love him, Major Stanley; love him as your
own, even though others shall call you father. Tell her--I tried--to
pray--"
He never spoke again; and when next the thick, black, clotted blood
oozed up from the gaping wound, it brought with it all there was of
life; and there in those Virginia woods, in the darkness of the night,
Irving Stanley sat alone with the dead. And yet not alone, for away to
his right, and where the neigh of a horse had been heard, another
wounded soldier lay--his soft, brown locks moist with dew, and his
captain's uniform wet with the blood which dripped from the terrible
gash in the fleshy part of the neck, where a murderous ball had been.
One arm, the right one, was broken, and lay disabled upon the grass;
while the hand of the other clutched occasionally at the damp grass, and
then lifting itself, stroked caressingly the powerful limbs of the
faithful creature standing guard over the prostrate form of his master.