Jimmy Quixote: A Novel. Gallon Tom

about her voice and her movements as she waited upon him; the faded old eyes had a light in them that had never shone for anyone but him. "Eat it, dearie; it'll do you good," she whispered.

      Nor would she leave him until a little later, utterly worn out, he toiled upstairs to his room. And even then, in the security of her own room, she listened for a long time, with her ear against the door, while the man paced up and down – up and down – in his own room near at hand. But at last even that sound ceased, and Old Paul was apparently at rest.

      The night must have soothed him in some fashion; he woke calm and refreshed. True, some of his gaiety was gone; he had a way of suddenly relapsing into silence for no given reason, and then waking himself from those silences with a start and a forced laugh. And a week after that visit to London he suddenly went again; and this time was absent for the whole of that day and the night, and the whole of the next day.

      As he alighted at the little station of Daisley Cross, and took his way down towards the house, with the darkening fields and woods on either side of him, he moved like a man who has come into a strange world; for now he viewed this world with other eyes than those with which he had looked upon it before. As he walked, he strove to remember what he had to face, and what had been said to him that day. It was difficult to remember, because it was jumbled in his mind with something that had to be done, and done quickly. For there was so little time – dear God! – there was such a little time left!

      That was the burden of the merciless song that had been ringing in his ears all day – a song the faint coming sound of which had been suggested to him a week before. He had only heard the thing faintly then – a mere whisper of it; now it was ringing in his ears, and beating on his very brain. As he walked, tears, not wholly of self-pity, flooded into his eyes; he had not deserved this – had not expected it. It wasn't fair nor just; other men who had lived wilder lives than himself would go on living wilder lives yet, until they grew to be old, with a long life to look back upon; and his was to close in so short a time; he was still young – and yet young enough to die. It wasn't fair – there must be some way —

      He grew calmer presently; some of the old sober strength of the man, that had been shattered for the time, returned to him. The peace of the night stole into his veins; he looked about him at the darkening world, and up at the stars, and thought how small and poor a thing he was, compared with all the worlds that took their calm and solemn ways about him. He was but a unit in a great scheme of things; and on this very earth he trod to-night other men in bygone years had trod their ways, of joy or pain, weariness or hope; and so had gone down into the dust, as he must go. It did not seem so bad, out here under the stars; it almost seemed as though the man walked alone with his God, and understood.