Part 22 (1/2)

What I felt as I sat and watched I cannot describe, for he desired me to remain to the end. Nor will I try and write about the farewell between him and Wilfred, and my sisters, and Ruth. Such scenes are not to be written about; they cannot be. Even now that solemn hour comes back to me, and I try to realise, as I tried to realise then, that my father's spirit went to be with G.o.d.

Oh, this mystery of death! It surrounds us all, and yet we understand it not. There we stood talking with him, who was soon to be no more with us--and we knew it. What would become of his spirit? We did not know, we could only hope. Would father become nothing, or would he live on? I could not realise the fact of his death then. I can barely do so now. For one hour my father talked to us. His brain thought, his tongue spoke, his soul felt, the next--he was gone; and yet he was not gone. He lay there, the father I had embraced, and yet he did not lie there. The body could not love, and my father _did_ love me.

After we had sat some time in silence, Mr. Polperrow spoke to my father. He asked him if he felt himself safe for the next world; but father answered him not.

”You have always been a good churchman,” continued Mr. Polperrow, ”and have always been regular in partaking of the Holy Communion.”

My father smiled, I thought sadly, and then he beckoned to me again.

He looked as though he had something to tell me--at least, I thought so--and I put my ear close to his mouth. He was now very weak, and spoke with difficulty; but I thought I caught the words:

”Be careful.”

I thought he referred to the legend about the curse and a.s.sured him that I would be careful, but he did not seem satisfied.

”Beware of----” he said, and seemed to hesitate before p.r.o.nouncing the word that would make the sentence complete. He looked round the room until his eyes rested on the place where my mother and Wilfred stood, then he sighed deeply.

”I will beware of everything wrong,” I said, in trying to lead his mind from difficulty or doubt. ”You are sure everything is well with you.

No vestige of the curse remains with you.”

He looked at me strangely, then a smile lit up his face and a new light beamed from his eyes.

”There is no curse,” he said. ”G.o.d is love.”

These were his last words. Soon after his soul took its flight into the unseen.

Then I went out into the night alone. One by one the events of the day flashed through my mind, until I was sick and dizzy.

I was terribly excited; but beneath the excitement was a dull, aching pain. For hours I walked the headland and tried to realise that my father was dead, that I should hear his voice no more; but realisation was impossible. I had seen him ride away in the morning, a handsome, robust, man in the prime of life, and now----.

In my grief for him everything else had for the time been forgotten.

Everything had been dispelled by this great calamity, and what was hardest of all to bear was that I was not sure that my father was--somewhere. I could not think of him as being in h.e.l.l. I could not think of G.o.d, father, and h.e.l.l at the same time, but was he anywhere?

”Father,” I cried, ”let me know that you are somewhere! Let me hear you speak, if only a word; only to know that all is well.”

The night was very still. Not a breath of wind stirred, the harvest moon was just sinking into the sea, and the water was all aglow with its light. But I heard no voice. Even the sea made no noise, so still were its waters.

”Ah!” I cried, ”my father is gone, for ever gone, and I am cursed with the curse of my people.”

Was it fancy? Was it the voice of man or the voice of G.o.d that I heard in answer to my despairing cry? Fancy it could not be, for it was past midnight and I stood alone on the great headland. Surely G.o.d spoke to me, for there, alone in the silence, I heard my father's last words repeated. How they came I know not, but this I know, in tones sweeter than thought can fancy came the glorious message, ”There is no curse, G.o.d is love.”

After that I was able to think and connect, link by link, the events of the evening.

And all this was but the twilight which told of the coming night.

CHAPTER XI

THE CALL TO RENOUNCE