Gentle hands finished their
task. Beatrice lay in the awful beauty of death--no pain, no
sorrow moving the serene loveliness of her placid brow. He knelt
by her side. It was his little Beatrice, this strange, cold,
marble statue--his little baby Beatrice, who had leaped in his
arms years ago, who had cried and laughed, who had learned in
pretty accents to lisp his name--his beautiful child, his proud,
bright daughter, who had kissed him the previous night while he
spoke jesting words to her about her lover. And he had never
heard her voice since--never would hear it again. Had she
called him when the dark waters closed over her bright head?
Cold, motionless, no gleam of life or light--and this was Dora's
little child! He uttered a great cry as the thought struck him:
"What would Dora say?" He loved Beatrice; yet for all the long
years of her childhood he had been absent from her. How must
Dora love the child who had slept on her bosom, and who was now
parted from her forever.
And then his thoughts went back to the old subject: "How had it
happened? What had taken her to the lake?"
One knelt near who might have told him, but a numb, awful dread
had seized upon Lillian.
Pages:
441
442
443
444
445
446
447
448
449
450
451
452
453
454
455
456
457
458
459
460
461
462
463
464
465