“Because for what?” asked Charlie in plain anger; but both looked quickly toward the house. The colonel tossed his hands wildly in the air, rushed forward a step or two, and, giving one fearful scream of agony and fright, fell forward on his face in the path. Old Charlie stood transfixed with horror. Belles Demoiselles, the realm of maiden beauty, the home of merriment, the house of dancing, all in the tremor and glow of pleasure, suddenly sank, with one short, wild wail of terror--sank, sank, down, down, down, into the merciless, unfathomable flood of the Mississippi.
Twelve long months were midnight to the mind of the childless father. When they were only half gone, he took to his bed; and every day and every night old Charlie, the “low-down,” the “fool,” watched him tenderly, tended him lovingly, for the sake of his name, his misfortunes, and his broken heart. No woman’s step crossed the floor of the sick chamber, the western dormer-windows of which overpeered the dingy architecture of old Charlie’s block. Charlie and a skilled physician, the one all interest, the other all gentleness, hope, and patience, only these entered by the door; but by the window came in a sweet-scented evergreen vine, transplanted from the caving hank of Belles Demoiselles. It caught the rays of sunset in its flowery net and let them softly in upon the sick man’s bed; gathered the glancing beams of the moon at midnight, and often wakened the sleeper to look, with his mindless eyes, upon their pretty silver fragments strewn upon the floor.
By and by there seemed--there was--a twinkling dawn of returning reason. Slowly, peacefully, with an increase unseen from day to day, the light of reason came into the eyes, and speech became coherent; but withal there came a failing of the wrecked body, and the doctor said that monsieur was both better and worse.
One evening as Charlie sat by the vine-clad window with his fireless pipe in his hand, the old colonel’s eyes fell full upon his own, and rested there.
“Charl--,” he said with an effort, and his delighted nurse hastened to the bedside and bowed his best ear. There was an unsuccessful effort or two, and then he whispered, smiling with sweet sadness: