Page:The Strand Magazine (Volume 1).djvu/239

 and he depicted them, in all their softened beauty, upon his cardboard, with a face between that seemed to look out in ineffable love upon a guilt-laden world. This was what the artist wrought.

"Oh, Mr. Daubs!"

The exclamation was pregnant with meaning. Willie had returned, and was devouring with open mouth and eyes the sketch of the angel.

"Well, youngster, do you think that will do for Dodo?"

"And that's for Dodo?" was the only answer, for the boy was still absorbed in the artist's creation.

"Have you ever seen an angel, Mr. Daubs? Ah, you must have. I knew you were clever at horses, and trees, and birds, and skies, but I didn't guess you were so good at angels. It's just what mother said they were!"

"There, don't make me vain, but take it; and"—added John partly to himself, "may the King of Cherubim hold in reserve his messenger, not for a death-warrant, but a blessing!"

"Thank you, so much. But I'm going to pay you, you know." And Willie drew out proudly an old pocket-handkerchief, and, applying his teeth vigorously to a special corner of it, took therefrom a sixpence.

John smiled, but took the coin without a word. Then he lifted the boy up, and kissed him tenderly. The next moment he was alone; Willie had departed with his angel. The artist listened to the pattering footsteps as they descended the stairs, then bowed his head upon his arms, and what with his three nights of unrest, and thinking over what he had been and might have been, fell into a profound sleep.

Not long had he been in the land of counterpane, when of a sudden there was a stir from without.

The night air was quick with cries, and a childish treble seemed to echo and re-echo above them all. There was something familiar in this latter sound. It was as a harsh note on a diapason that had but recently brought him sweetest music.

In a moment John had gained the street. He had connected the cry with one object—Willie. That object had for him a value infinite, so quick in its power of attraction is the spark of sympathy when once kindled. John's view of life had seemed, in this last half-hour, to have greatly widened. It took account of things previously unnoticed; it opened up feelings long dormant. His ear was strangely sensitive to the beat of this new pulse—so much so that a vague terror shaped itself out of that night-cry. It seemed to him to portend disaster.

But surely his worst fears are realised! What is that moving mass away in the distance? Soon John has reached the spot. He hears a hum of sympathy, and then there is a reverential silence: John's ears have caught the pitying accents of a bystander, "Poor lad! Heaven help him!"

"Help him! Help whom?"

John's mind is quick at inference. He parts the crowd, and with certain glance looks upon its point of observation. He knew it no need of words to tell him. A little form is there, mangled with the hoofs of a horse. Its life-blood is slowly oozing out on the pavement. The face has the hue of death—no mistaking that—and yet it has around it something of the halo of saintship. John gazes as one distraught. The face he sees, now pinched with the agonies of death, is that of Willie Maxwell!

"Good God, is it possible?"

But a brief moment or two since, it seemed to John, this poor boy was