He started up as if electrified, and stretched his arms out. “Stay! stay!” he cried, and saw that it was no vision, but a pictured, saintly face, with tears on the cheeks, and lips from which a message seemed to have just escaped.
“Dick, what is the matter?” his mother exclaimed in terror.
He sank back on the pillows. “I saw it before, and thought it was a dream,” he whispered. “I was thinking of it as I lay here.”
“The picture?” his mother asked. “Edith hung it there. I will take it away if you don’t like it.”
“I do like it,” he answered faintly. “It is a blessed, blessed vision.” He lay looking at it a while, then slipped his hand under the pillow and found a little crucifix that he had always kept there. At the beginning of his illness his mother had taken it away, but Edith had returned and kept it there, seeing that he sometimes sought for it. He drew it forth now, pressed it passionately to his lips, then, holding it in the open palm of his hand, on the pillow, turned his cheek to it with a gesture of childlike fondness. “O my Love!” he whispered.
“Shall I tell Edith to come in?” his mother asked, catching the whisper.
“Not now, not to-night, mother,” he answered softly.
But the next morning he asked to see the whole family, with the servants, and, when they came, thanked them affectionately for what they had done for him, taking each one by the hand. When Edith approached, a slight color flickered in his cheeks, and he looked at her earnestly. Her changed face seemed to distress him. “Dear child, I have been killing you!” he said.
At his perfectly unembarrassed and friendly address, Edith’s worst fear took flight. If Dick had reproached or been cold to her, she would have defended herself without difficulty; but if he had shrunk from her, she could scarcely have borne it.
The doctor was quite right in saying that their only difficulty would be in keeping their patient quiet, for Dick insisted on sitting up that very day.
“The doctor wishes you to lie still,” his mother said.
“And I wish to get up,” he retorted, smiling, but wilful.
“The Lord wishes you to lie still, Dick,” Edith said.
He became quiet at once. “Do you think so?” he asked.
“Father John will tell you,” she answered, as the door opened to give admittance to the priest.