Page:Maud Howe - Atlanta in the South.djvu/349

 The grievous response came slowly, with a monotonous reiteration which tortured Therese when it fell from the lips of physicians who tended him with unfailing devotion. Their chief had been stricken down; the man who had inspired them with faith and courage in the never-to-be-forgotten weeks now lay ill of an insidious disease whose nature they could not determine, whose progress they failed to stay.

From the hour when he had been first attacked,—it was soon after he had received a number of letters, Therese remembered,—she had hardly left him. She took such rest and refreshment as were necessary at the farther corner of the lofty room, whose gay appointments were strangely out of keeping with the scene to which they afforded a background. Certain of the pictures which she deemed unfit for dying eyes she banished, and above the bed she hung a crucifix, the parting gift of the Abbess who had been as a mother to her. It was a wonderful work of art, carven of flawless ivory, mellow with the centuries which had passed since the master-hand which wrought it had crumbled to dust. The ebony cross brought sharply into relief the emaciated body and the beautiful grieved face. Philip had told Therese that she possessed a treasure in this bit of carving, and she hung it where his