"
The light, that was like sunlight, shone once more in the aching,
wandering eyes.
"I knew, I knew! It was--"
Cecil bowed his head over him, lower and lower.
"Hush! He was but a child; and I--"
With a sudden and swift motion, as though new life were thrilling in
him, Rake raised himself erect, his arms stretched outward to the east,
where the young day was breaking.
"I knew, I knew! I never doubted. You will go back to your own some day,
and men shall learn the truth--thank God! thank God!"
Then, with that light still on his face, his head fell backward; and
with one quick, brief sigh his life fled out forever.
The time passed on; the storm had risen afresh; the violence of the
gusts blew yellow sheets of sand whirling over the plains. Alone, with
the dead one across his knees, Cecil sat motionless as though turned to
stone. His eyes were dry and fixed; but ever and again a great, tearless
sob shook him from head to foot. The only life that linked him with
the past, the only love that had suffered all things for his sake,
were gone, crushed out as though they never had been, like some insect
trodden in the soil.
He had lost all consciousness, all memory, save of that lifeless thing
which lay across his knees, like a felled tree, like a broken log, with
the glimmer of the tempestuous day so chill and white upon the upturned
face.
He was alone on earth; and the solitudes around him were not more
desolate than his own fate.
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