Page:Once a Week Volume V.djvu/517

 510 It was impossible to doubt the truth ex-pressed in the earnest tones of the young man’s voice, the fervour that glowed in his dark eye; and there was, besides, so much firmness and power in the character of his face, that it gave assurance his word was never lightly given, and never broken. A smile passed over the ghastly paleness of Mr. Lennox’s face; he put out his hand to grasp that of Keefe, but before he could touch it, a shudder convulsed his frame, his hand fell on Helen’s head, and he breathed his last in one deep and heavy sigh.

shock of her father’s death was the greater to Helen, because, in spite of his own assurances, she had not believed him in any immediate danger.

She had mistaken the “lightening before death,” the last flicker of the expiring lamp of life, for a true amendment, and it was long before she could really believe that he was dead. When at last convinced that there was no hope, that he could never more feel her caresses nor respond to her love, her agony of grief might have melted the sternest heart. Keefe could not bear to see it.

“How can I comfort her? What can I do for her?” he said to Mrs. Wendell; “it kills me to see her suffer this way.”

“Well, you can do nothing,” said Mrs. Wendell, “nor no one else; no one can comfort such sorrow but God, and his help will come to her at the right time. It would only do her harm to come between her and her grief. Let her cry on, poor thing; her tears will do her more good than anything else could.”

Helen did not hear them, she was in a stupor of grief; she was conscious of nothing but that her father was gone far beyond the reach of her yearning heart.

Some hours later, when Mrs. Wendell again came to entreat her to go to bed, she found her buried in a repose almost as profound as that of the lifeless form by which she lay. Deeply touched at the sight, Mrs. Wendell called Keefe softly, and he carried her to the bed prepared for her, and laid her there, without disturbing that death-like hush of exhausted anguish; a mother could not have placed her babe in its cradle with more tenderness and care.

Every one that has known sorrow has felt the bewildering, torturing sensations of doubt and fear struggling against the nightmarelike oppression of grief weighing upon the senses, which comes after the first interval of rest has been broken, and the fresh agony of woe which follows the full return of memory and consciousness.

All this Helen felt when she woke the next morning, but after this crisis was over she grew calm; her mind had regained its power of self control, and though she instantly resumed her place beside her father, and would not leave him again, silence and darkness alone witnessed the tears she shed. Mrs. Wendell anxiously entreated her to go into the open air, to take more food, for she scarcely tasted any, and when night came again, to go to bed, but nothing could induce her to give up her loving watch; and shaking her head, Mrs. Wendell told Keefe that the poor thing was likely enough to be ready for her coffin before her father was put into his grave.

Keefe said nothing, but he would have given half his allotted years to have had the privilege of sharing and soothing her sorrow.

When at last he saw her, the day before her father was to be buried, she came into the orchard, where there were some beds of flowers, to gather sweet violets, primroses, and “the beautiful Puritan pansies,” to strew in his coffin. Coming home from his work about seven o’clock in the evening Keefe found her there. The heroism with which he had risked his life to save her and him who was now at rest, their dangerous passage through the wild waves in the little skiff, and the night he had stood beside her, and listened to her father’s dying words, all rushed on Helen when she saw him; emotion stifled her voice, she could only hold out her hand. It was a lovely evening, rosy light filled the orchards, the blossoms of the fruit-trees perfumed the air, and bees from a stand of hives placed beneath two fine old peach-trees were humming among the branches. The sweet summer air, the soft light, the rich fragrance soothed and refreshed Helen’s sad heart, nor was she insensible to the deep, silent sympathy expressed in Keefe’s look and manner. As for Keefe, a strange transformation seemed to take place in him, all his finest and best emotions were stirred in her presence, and the roughnesses with which that “mis-creator,” circumstances, had crusted his nature, disappeared.

“What a lovely evening,” he said; “I think it is the first true summer’s day we have had.”

“It is lovely, too lovely, too bright; nature will not mourn with me.”

“She does better,” said Keefe, “she smiles to cheer you; will you let me help you to gather the flowers? I know where the finest grow.”

He brought her a handful of half-blown roses, and as she took them, he saw tears fall softly and silently over their bright blossoms.

“He always loved me to bring him the first roses,” she said, “and now I shall lay them in his coffin.”

“I know,” said Keefe, gently, “you like still to do what pleased your father when he was with you, and if you will only think how it would pain him to see you destroying your health with grief, I am sure you would not do so.”

“Oh! I know it is wrong to grieve so much for him, when he is but gone to that God who is his Father and mine; but you can’t tell,” said poor Helen, “how much we were to each other.”

“I think I can imagine it; but can those who love ever be divided? Is not your father’s love as much yours in that unknown land to which he has gone as it would have been if only the Atlantic had separated you?”

“Do you believe this?” asked Helen, raising her eyes earnestly to his.

“Yes; the only one who ever loved me is gone to that spirit-land, but I feel and know that her love is with me still; when I do right I know she is glad, when I do wrong I know that it grieves her. And if your father sees you now, will it not pain