Part 36 (1/2)

”I think,” said Mr. Denner, folding his little hands upon his breast,--”I think, Gifford, that the doctor was not quite frank with me, to-day. I thought it proper to ask him if my injury was at all of a serious nature, if it might have--ah--I ought to apologize for speaking of unpleasant things--if it might have an untoward ending. He merely remarked that all injuries had possibilities of seriousness in them; he appeared in haste, and anxious to get away, so I did not detain him, thinking he might have an important case elsewhere. But it seemed as though he was not quite frank, Gifford; as though, in fact, he evaded. I did not press it, fearing to embarra.s.s him, but I think he evaded.”

Gifford also evaded. ”He did not say anything which seemed evasive to me, Mr. Denner. He was busy charging me to remember your medicines, and he stopped to say a word about your bravery, too.”

Mr. Denner shook his head deprecatingly at this, but he seemed pleased.

”Oh, not at all, it was nothing,--it was of no consequence.” One of the shutters blew softly to, and darkened the room; Gifford rose, and, leaning from the window, fastened it back against the ivy which had twisted about the hinge from the stained bricks of the wall. ”I cannot claim any bravery,” the sick man went on. ”No. It was, as it were, accidental, Gifford.”

”Accidental?” said the young man. ”How could that be? I heard the horse, and ran down the road after the phaeton just in time to see you make that jump, and save her.”

Mr. Denner sighed. ”No,” he replied, ”no, it was quite by chance.

I--I was mistaken. I am glad I did not know, however, for I might have hesitated. As it was, laboring under a misapprehension, I had no time to be afraid.”

”I don't think I quite understand,” said Gifford.

Mr. Denner was silent. The room was so dark now, he could scarcely see the young man's face as he stood leaning against one of the huge bed-posts. Behind him, Mr. Denner just distinguished his big secretary, with its pigeon-holes neatly labeled, and with papers filed in an orderly way. No one had closed it since the afternoon that he had been carried in and laid on the horse-hair sofa. He had given Mary the key then, and had asked her to fetch the bottle of brandy from one of the long divisions where it stood beside a big ledger. The little gentleman had hesitated to give trouble in asking to have it locked again, though that it should be open offended his ideas of privacy. Now he looked at it, and then let his eyes rest upon the nephew of the Misses Woodhouse.

”Gifford,” he said, ”would you be so obliging as to take the small bra.s.s key from my ring,”--here he thrust his lean hand under his pillow, and produced his bunch of keys, which jingled as he held them unsteadily out,--”and unlock the little lower drawer in the left-hand side of my writing-desk?”

Gifford took the ring over to the candle, which made the shadow of his head loom up on the opposite wall, as he bent to find the little bra.s.s key among a dozen others of all shapes and sizes.

”I have unlocked it, sir,” he said, a moment later.

”Take the candle, if you please,” responded Mr. Denner, ”and you will see, I think, in the right-hand corner, back, under a small roll, a flat, square parcel.”

”Yes, sir,” Gifford answered, holding the candle in his left hand, and carefully lifting the parcel.

”Under that,” proceeded Mr. Denner, ”is an oval package. If you will be good enough to hand me that, Gifford. Stay,--will you lock the drawer first, if you please, and the desk?”

Gifford did so, and then put the package into Mr. Denner's hands. He held it a moment before he gently removed the soft, worn tissue paper in which it was wrapped; his very touch was a caress.

”I was desirous,” he said, ”of having this by me. It is a miniature of my little sister, sir. She--perhaps you scarcely remember her? She died when I was twenty. That is forty-one years ago. A long time, Gifford, a long time to have missed her. She is the only thing of--of that nature that I have loved--since I was twenty.”

He stopped, and held the miniature up to look at it; but the light had faded, and the ivory only gleamed faintly.

”I look at this every day when I am in health, and I like it by me now.

No, not the candle, I thank you, Gifford. I called for it now (how tarnished these pearls are in the frame! If--if I should not recover, it must be reset. Perhaps you will see to that for me, Gifford?),--I called for it now, because I wished to say, in the event of my--demise, I should wish this given to one of your aunts, sir.”

Gifford came out from the shadow at the foot of the bed, and took Mr.

Denner's hand. He did not speak; he had only the man's way of showing sympathy, and one weaker than Gifford could not have resisted the piteous longing for life in Mr. Denner's tone, and would have hastened to rea.s.sure him. But Gifford only held his hand in a firm, gentle grasp, and was silent.

”I should wish one of them to have it,” he continued. ”I have not provided for its welfare in my will; I had thought there was no one for whom I had enough--enough regard, to intrust them with it. I even thought to destroy it when I became old. Some people might wish to carry it with them to the grave, but I could not--oh, no, not my little sister! See, Gifford--take it to the light--not that little merry face. I should like to think it was with your aunts. And--and there is, as it were, a certain propriety in sending it to--her.”

Gifford took the miniature from the lawyer's hand, and, kneeling by the candle, looked at it. The faded velvet case held only the rosy, happy face of a little child; not very pretty, perhaps, but with eyes which had smiled into Mr. Denner's for forty years, and Gifford held it in reverent hands.

”Yes,” said the old man, ”I would like one of them to have it.”

”I shall remember it, sir,” Gifford answered, putting the case down on the lawyer's pillow.

The room was quite still for a few moments, and then Mr. Denner said, ”Gifford, it was quite accidental, quite by mistake, as it were, that I stopped the horse for Mrs. Forsythe and little Lois. I--I thought, sir, it was one of your aunts. One of your aunts, do you understand Gifford?

You know what I said to you, at the stone bench, that afternoon? I--I alluded to myself, sir.”