The Silver Lining Part 38

The men precipitated themselves towards the spot. Mrs. Soher was carried to her room upstairs and left to the care of her daughter who applied restoratives.

The corpse was carried into another room and laid upon a bed. The eyes remained wide open.

The neighbours sent away the carriage and its owner; one of them remained in the house while the other went for a doctor.

Mrs. Soher regained consciousness, and as her senses returned to her, she cried bitterly: "My poor son, my dear son."

At this stage, Mr. Soher came home. He was surprised to find his neighbour seated near the fire in the kitchen. His surprise was changed into anguish, when the neighbour, in a few words, informed him of Tom's sad fate.

Mr. Soher was horrified. With a blanched face and tottering steps he ascended the stairs and entered the room in which lay his wife. Upon seeing him, his wife uttered heart-rending cries: "Oh, Thomas, what are we going to do; our only son." Her sobs choked her.

Her husband did not say a word. He turned on his heels, closed the door after him, and entered the room in which lay his son's corpse.

As he glanced at those dilated eyes, a chill ran through his frame.

"Great G.o.d; is it possible?" he exclaimed, raising his eyes to heaven; "my son, my son."

He paced up and down the room with feverish steps, a prey to the most poignant grief. His conscience upbraided him loudly. It said:

"Behold your son whose education you have overlooked; behold him whom you have left to grow in vice, without an effort worth the name to save him from the ruinous bent of his bad pa.s.sions."

"I know it; 'tis all my fault," exclaimed the grief and conscience-stricken man. "I have not done half of what I might have done for him.

"Animated by a false pride, I desired to s.h.i.+ne among my fellow-wors.h.i.+ppers, and have been continually away from home, neglecting my duty there, to satisfy my ambition. Miserable man that I am."

He cast his eyes towards the lifeless body of which the eyes met his and seemed to reproach him for having s.h.i.+rked his duty.

"Oh, G.o.d! wilt thou ever forgive me?" he cried in wild despair; "what can I do to atone? If one half, if a tenth part of the energy which I have displayed elsewhere had been employed in bringing up my son as I ought to have done, this would not be."

He continued thus to soliloquize, now and then stopping abruptly in his nervous walk to gaze upon those reproachful eyes, then resuming his wanderings, blaming himself continually.

He was in the midst of his peregrinations when his daughter entered the room.

"Father," she said, "a woman who is downstairs wishes to speak with you."

The troubled man did not answer. What was this to him; what was all the world to him compared with his grief?

"She says her daughter, who is dying, wishes to see you," continued the young woman.

"Tell her I am coming," said Mr. Soher.

A dying woman wis.h.i.+ng to see him. How could he refuse that? Perhaps he would be the means of doing some good to this person. If he could thus begin to atone for his want of dutifulness towards his son.

He went downstairs.

"My daughter wishes to see you now," said his visitor. "You will come, Sir; you will not refuse a dying woman's request?"

"Refuse; certainly not," he said, and he immediately accompanied his visitor.

They walked the whole distance which separated the two houses without a word being exchanged between them.

Mr. Soher's thoughts were with the dead; his companion was already grieving for the daughter which she felt sure she was about to lose.

Mr. Soher was ushered near the dying woman's bed. The latter was raving, but directly she perceived him she fixed her gaze upon him, her wild, rambling talk ceased, her mind seemed to regain its lucidity. She exclaimed: "I have not found it, therefore I am lost for ever."

"What have you not found?" he said kindly.

"Listen," said she. "Some time ago, I entered a small place of wors.h.i.+p in which a man was delivering an address, or, as he called it, a testimonial.

"He said that when he had been converted, he had felt a heavenly ray of light flooding his very soul. He said he felt as if an electric battery had come in contact with his entrails. At the same time, he heard a voice clearly saying: 'My son, thy sins are forgiven thee.'

"This man, who was no other than you, Sir, said that if his hearers had not clearly heard this divine voice and experienced this shock, they were doomed. He exhorted the congregation to seek for these blessings.

"I went home impressed. I decided to seek for these things of which you spoke. I prayed, I hoped, I waited, but I have never felt half of what you promised your audience they would find.

"Now, I am then to understand that I am rejected.

"Rejected! oh Heaven."

The poor woman burst into tears and uttered a wail of despair.

Mr. Soher tried to soothe her.

"No," she said, "you are trying to deceive me, you are not speaking the truth."

He protested. "It was then, that I did not speak the truth," he said. "I was exalted, I went too far."

"Is it true?" said the dying woman.

"Oh yes, do believe me."

"I believe you," she said sneeringly.

The fever was again coming upon her. She began to wander in her speech.

Mr. Soher, at a sign from the mother, who had followed him into the room, withdrew.

His brain was on fire. His heart was full of the deepest and keenest anguish.

"What have I done?" he muttered. "I wanted to be thought a saint.

Not being one, I acted the hypocrite. Now, here I am, maimed, afflicted, weighed down with grief."

He reached his home--a wreck.

A few days afterwards, poor Tom's body was buried in the churchyard.

From that day, life at the "Prenoms" was completely changed.

Mr. Soher examined himself and his surroundings.