Part 97

"I believe every word of it's true; I know it, I feel it! Uncle Bob, you have changed my life; I have often desponded when nobody knew--but never again! Dear papa! Only think of him! As if any human being alive could write what he has written without help from above or outside. Of course it's all true; I sometimes think I can almost remember things.... I'm sure I can."

Barty and Leah were well pleased with me when they came home that night.

That Marty was doomed to an early death did not very deeply distress them. It is astonishing how lightly they thought of death, these people for whom life seemed so full of joy; but that she should ever be conscious of the anguish of her lot while she lived was to them intolerable--a haunting preoccupation.

To me, a narrower and more selfish person, Marty had almost become to me life itself--her calamity had made her mine forever; and life without her had become a thing not to be conceived: her life was my life.

That life of hers was to be even shorter than we thought, and I love to think that what remained of it was made so smooth and sweet by what I told her that night.

I read all Martia's blaze letters to her, and helped her to read them for herself, and so did Barty. She got to know them by heart--especially the last; she grew to talk as Martia wrote; she told me of strange dreams she had often had--dreams she had told Sparrow and her own brothers and sisters when she was a child--wondrous dreams, in their seeming confirmation of what seemed to us so impossible. Her pains grew slighter and ceased.

And now her whole existence had become a dream--a tranquil, happy dream; it showed itself in her face, its transfigured, unearthly beauty--in her cheerful talk, her eager sympathy; a kind of heavenly pity she seemed to feel for those who had to go on living out their normal length of days. And always the old love of fun and frolic and pretty tunes.

Her father would make her laugh till she cried, and the same fount of tears would serve when Mary sang Brahms and Schubert and Lassen to her--and Roberta played Chopin and Schumann by the hour.

So she might have lived on for a few years--four or five--even ten. But she died at seventeen, of mere influenza, very quickly and without much pain. Her father and mother were by her bedside when her spirit passed away, and Dr. Knight, who had brought her into the world.

She woke from a gentle doze and raised her head, and called out in a clear voice:

"Barty--Leah--come, to me, come!"

And fell back dead.

Barty bowed his head and face on her hand, and remained there as if asleep. It was Leah who drew her eyelids down.

An hour later Dr. Knight came to me, his face distorted with grief.

"It's all over?" I said.

"Yes, it's all over."

"And Leah?"

"Mrs. Josselin is with her husband. She's a noble woman; she seems to bear it well."

"And Barty?"

"Barty Josselin is no more."

THE END

GLOSSARY

3, 26. odium theologicum--theological hatred.

3, 27. sæva indignatio--fierce indignation.

5, 1. "De Paris à Versailles," etc.-- "From Paris to Versailles, lon, là, From Paris to Versailles-- There are many fine walks, Hurrah for the King of France! There are many fine walks, Hurrah for the school-boys!"

5, 2. salle d'études des petits--study-room of the smaller boys.

6, 11. parloir--parlor.

6, 14. e da capo--and over again.