He watched his jailers and at last his hour came. The tired guard beside his prison pallet slept. With fevered stealth he rose and with the strength of a giant, bent the bars of his cage and crawled and fought his way over hill and valley, rocks and mountains, back to the bedside of his beloved.
He paused in rapture at the door. She was sitting up in bed, the pillows propped behind her back, singing their favorite song--"Fairy Bells." How soft and weirdly sweet her voice--its notes so far away and plaintive--never had she sung so divinely!
He held his breath lest a word or quiver of its melody should be lost. And then he slipped his strong arms about her and looked into her eyes shining with unearthly beauty.
"You have come at last, my own!" she sighed. "I knew the Bells would call you--"
"Yes--dearest--and I'll never leave you again--they took me away a wounded prisoner of war--but I broke the bars and came when I heard you call--"
"Look," she whispered, pointing with the slender blue-veined finger, "there she is, in the doorway again with her baby in her arms, waving at sunset to her lover on the hill?--what does it matter, a cabin or a palace!"
The shining eyes grew dim, the figure drooped, and a wild piteous cry came from the lover's fevered lips:
"Lord God of Love and Pity--she's dying!--Help--Help--Help!"
His faithful servant, worn with watching day and night, heard the cry, rushed to his side and caught his fainting form, as the light of the world faded.
They nursed him slowly back into life again, the loving heart of the older brother guiding the arm of his faithful slave.
"It's no use, Joe," he cried with bitter despair. "Life isn't worth the struggle any more. I'm tired, I just want to rest--by her side--that's all."
"I know, Boy, how you feel. But you must live. Duty calls. Great events are stirring the world. You've a man's part to play--"
"I won't play it. I'm done with ambition. I'm done with strife. The game's not worth the candle. I've lived the only life worth living, and it's finished."
Little by little, each day, the brother slowly rebuilt in the stricken soul the will to live. Before he was able to walk, he lifted the frail form in his arms, carried him into his big library, and seated him in an arm-chair before a fire of glowing logs.