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The Angel at the Grave
by
“Sure! Sure! My dear lady–” he measured her again with his quick confident glance. “Don’t you believe in him?”
She drew back with a confused murmur. “I–used to.” She had left her hands in his: their pressure seemed to send a warm current to her heart. “It ruined my life!” she cried with sudden passion. He looked at her perplexedly.
“I gave up everything,” she went on wildly, “to keep him alive. I sacrificed myself–others–I nursed his glory in my bosom and it died–and left me–left me here alone.” She paused and gathered her courage with a gasp. “Don’t make the same mistake!” she warned him.
He shook his head, still smiling. “No danger of that! You’re not alone, my dear lady. He’s here with you–he’s come back to you to-day. Don’t you see what’s happened? Don’t you see that it’s your love that has kept him alive? If you’d abandoned your post for an instant–let things pass into other hands–if your wonderful tenderness hadn’t perpetually kept guard–this might have been–must have been–irretrievably lost.” He laid his hand on the pamphlet. “And then–then he would have been dead!”
“Oh,” she said, “don’t tell me too suddenly!” And she turned away and sank into a chair.
The young man stood watching her in an awed silence. For a long time she sat motionless, with her face hidden, and he thought she must be weeping.
At length he said, almost shyly: “You’ll let me come back, then? You’ll help me work this thing out?”
She rose calmly and held out her hand. “I’ll help you,” she declared.
“I’ll come to-morrow, then. Can we get to work early?”
“As early as you please.”
“At eight o’clock, then,” he said briskly. “You’ll have the papers ready?”
“I’ll have everything ready.” She added with a half-playful hesitancy: “And the fire shall be lit for you.”
He went out with his bright nod. She walked to the window and watched his buoyant figure hastening down the elm-shaded street. When she turned back into the empty room she looked as though youth had touched her on the lips.