It's like waiting to be shot
at dawn!
CHAPTER XXXII
I persuaded Brian to tell Father Beckett. I wasn't worthy. But the dear
old man came straight to me, transfigured, to make me go with him to his
wife, even before he had finished reading the letter.
"You must come," he said--and when Father Beckett says "must," in a
certain tone, one does. It's then that the resemblance, more in
expression than feature, between him and his son shines out like a
light. "It will save mother the trouble of asking for you," he went on,
dragging me joyously with him, his arm round my waist. "She'd do that,
first thing, sure! Why, do you suppose we forget Jim's as much to you as
to us? Haven't you shown us that, every day since we met?"
What answer could I give? I gave none.
Mother Beckett had been lying down for the afternoon nap which by my
orders she takes every day. She'd just waked, and was sitting up on the
lounge, when her husband softly opened the door to peep in. The only
light was firelight, leaping in an open grate.
"Come in, come in!" she greeted us in her silver tinkle of a voice. "Oh,
you didn't disturb me. I was awake. I thought I'd ring for tea. But I
didn't after all. I'd had such a beautiful dream, I hated to come out of
it."
"I bet it was a dream about Jim!" said Father Beckett. He drew me into
the room, and the little lady pulled me down beside her on the wide,
cushiony lounge. Her husband's special arm-chair was close by, but he
didn't subside into it as usual at this cosy hour of the afternoon.
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