Page:The Fate of Fenella (1892).djvu/245

 Gently these two brave gentlemen led their poor sick friend to his cabin, placed him on his couch, but before they left him in a half-dream they uncovered the sleeping form of a little child who was resting in an opposite berth, the fingers of one hand twisted in his sunny locks and the others clasped over a woman's portrait. The faithful Jacynth had taken it from next his heart and placed it in the child's hands.

It was Ronny, who had gone to sleep kissing his mother's picture, which had fallen from his baby hands.

For hours the sick man slept, and his friends stood, sentinel-like, loyal hearts at the cabin door. The sun had sunk, the stars were out, and the steamer was already miles at sea, plowing through the waves, lessening the journey between America and dear old England.

Still the true friends watched at the sick man's door.

Suddenly they heard a passionate cry, a wild cry of pleasurable pain, a cry that faded into a moan of relief.

"Ronny, Ronny darling—my child, my son—oh! how good is God. Let us thank God together."

Quietly the two friends opened the cabin door and saw father and son on their knees in an attitude of prayer. The child was looking up into his father's eyes, and the wasted man with