Page:Braddon--The Trail of the Serpent.djvu/76

72 I'm sure you deserve a better one, for you're true, lass, true as steel."

The girl drew his head closer to her breast, and bending over him, kissed his dry lips. She never thought, or cared to know, what fever or what poison she might inhale in that caress. If she had thought about it, perhaps she would have prayed that the same fever which had struck him down might lay her low beside him. He spoke again, as the light, with a lingering glow, brightened, and flickered, and then faded out.

"It's gone; it's gone for ever; it's behind me now, lass, and must look straight before"

"At what, Jim?—at what?"

"At a terrible gulf, my lass. I'm a-standing on the edge of it, and I'm a-looking down to the bottom of it—a cold dark lonesome place. But perhaps there's another light beyond it, lass; who knows?"

"Some say they do know, Jim," said the girl; "some say they do know, and that there is another light beyond, better than the one we see here, and always shining. Some people do know all about it, Jim."

"Then why didn't they tell us about it?" asked the man, with an angry expression in his hollow eyes. "I suppose those as taught them meant them to teach us; but I suppose they didn't think us worth the teaching. How many will be sorry for me, lass, when I am gone? Not grandmother; her brain's crazed with that fancy of hers of a golden secret—as if she wouldn't have sold it long before this if she'd had a secret—sold it for bread, or more likely for gin. Not anybody in Blind Peter—they've enough to do to think of the bit of food to put inside them, or of the shelter to cover their unfortunate heads. Nobody but you, lass, nobody but you, will be sorry for me; and I think you will."

He thinks she will be sorry. What has been the story of her life but one long thought and care for him, in which her every sorrow and her every joy have taken their colour from joys and sorrows of his?

While they are talking, Jabez comes in, and, seating himself on a low stool by the bed, talks to the sick man.

"And so," says Jim, looking him full in the face with a curious glance—"so you're my brother—the old woman's told me all about it—my twin brother; so like me, that it's quite a treat to look at you. It's like looking in a glass, and that's a luxury I've never been accustomed to. Light a candle, lass; I want to see my brother's face."

His brother was against the lighting of the candle—it might hurt the eyes of the sufferer, he suggested; but Jim repeated his request, and the girl obeyed.