London's Heart. B. L. Farjeon

the full disgrace of his condition came upon him, and made him ashamed to look his sister in the face.

      "You--you have been very hard to me, grandfather," he said hesitatingly.

      "I have been to you as you deserved, Alfred. Has your conduct to-night been such as should make me affectionate to you?"

      "I have no excuse to make," replied Alfred, thoroughly humbled; "but you will do me the justice to believe that it would not have been so with me had I known."

      "The remorse of a too-late repentance, Alfred, is a bitter experience."

      A resentful answer rose to Alfred's lips, but he checked it.

      "When--when did mother die, sir?" he asked.

      The words were long in coming. It seemed to him a hard question to ask.

      "An hour ago. I saw a change come over her, and Mr. Gribble ran for the doctor." Alfred remembered seeing Gribble junior tear along, struggling with his coat, and it was another sting to him that a stranger should have performed his duty. "When the doctor came she had passed away."

      "What did she say? Did she ask for me?"

      "She did not speak; she was unconscious."

      "And she died without a word to you or Lily, grandfather? without a thought of me?"

      "Who can tell her thoughts? Her mind may have been awake. She passed away in her sleep--peacefully, thank God! Her life has not been a happy one; and it is God's mercy that she was spared in her last moments the pain of seeing you as you are. It would have recalled her bitterest memories."

      "I am better now, grandfather. May I see her?"

      "Yes. Lily, my darling!" and the old man took her in his arms and kissed her; "you must go to bed--you are tired."

      But she clung to him, and entreated to be allowed to sit up with them.

      "No, dear child," he said; "we shall want you to be strong to-morrow. What is that you say? You are frightened! Nay, nay, dear child! Sleep will compose you. Alfred and I have much to talk of, and we must be alone. Good night, dear child!"

      When they left the room, Lily looked round and shuddered. The silence was full of terrors for her, and it was with difficulty she restrained herself from calling out. The events of the night had unnerved her. She went into the passage, and, listening, heard the buzz of voices in her grandfather's room. She could not catch the words, but it was a comfort to her to hear the sound; it was companionship. She crouched upon the ground, and lay there, with her head against the wall. A thousand fancies crowded her brain: the music-hall, with its glare of lights, and its great concourse of people, laughing, and drinking and applauding, presented itself to her in a variety of fantastic shapes, each image being perfect in itself and utterly engrossing, and yet fading entirely away in a moment, and giving place to a successor as vivid and as engrossing as any that had gone before. Other images presented themselves. Mr. Sheldrake, with his studied polished manner, and his smooth voice; Alfred and she in the dark passage; her grandfather, with a stern bearing quite unusual to him: the doctor, with his grave face and measured tones; and her mother lying dead, with grey stony face. Everything but the image of her mother was quick with life; through all the bustle and vivid movements of the other figures in her fevered fancies, that one figure presented and intruded itself in many strange ways, but always cold, and grey, and still. Presently the entire interest of her dreams centred itself in this image. Between her and her mother no great love had ever existed; the dead woman's nature had been repressive; an overwhelming grief had clouded her life, and she had yielded to it and sunk under it. She had hugged this grief close, as it were, and so wrapped herself in it, that her natural love had become frozen. So that the feeling which Lily experienced now in her dreams, for her dead mother, had nothing in it of that agonising grief which springs from intense love. And yet she shuddered at the part she was playing towards that grey cold form. It was lying before her, and she, dressed in bright colours, was dancing and singing round it. The contrast between her own gaiety and the dreadful stillness of the form she was dancing and singing to, impressed her with horror, and she strove to be still, but could not. Her struggles made her hysterical in her sleep--for Lily was sleeping now--when suddenly peace stole upon her, and she was calm. But it was not a comforting, refreshing peace; it was oppressive and painfully intense. A man stood before her, with his eyes fixed steadily upon hers. This man was one who, a few weeks before, had performed for a benefit at the music-hall. He was an electro-biologist, and Lily had been terrified by his performances. He had stolen away the wills of some of the persons upon whom he had operated, and made them do this and that at his pleasure; to pull down the moon; to drink water and believe it wine, then soapsuds; to shiver with cold; to be oppressed with heat; to dance; to stand still; to be transfixed like stone; to form friendships, hatreds, and a hundred other things as strange and inexplicable. She watched him do all these things. When the performance was over, the man, coming off the stage, had noticed the interest with which she had followed his experiments, and had said to her, "You are a good subject; I could do with you as I please." She was terrified at his words, and tried to move away from him, but could not, and could not take her eyes from his face. Perceiving this, he said to her, "Stretch out your arm," and she obeyed him; "Take my hand," and she took it, surrendering her will entirely to him. At this point they were interrupted, and she escaped him, thankfully; but for hours afterwards she was dazed, and thought much of the incident, dreading to meet the man again. Now he stood before her in her dreams, and commanded her to rise; she had no power to resist him, and she rose at his bidding. Here a diversion occurred by the word "Father!" falling upon her ears. It was not fancy, being uttered rather loudly by one of the speakers in the room, and it raised the image of her father. The last time she saw him, she was quite a little child, and then he was drunk, and was leaving her mother with words of anger on his lips. As he turned his face, in her sleeping fancies, towards the form of her mother lying dead before her, it suddenly changed to the face of Alfred, and she was pained and grieved at the likeness between father and son. Thus far the running commentary of her dreams.

      Meantime an impressive scene was being enacted between her brother and her grandfather. Alfred went behind the screen, and uncovered the face of his mother. It was hard and cold in death, as it had been hard and cold in life. The light of love had not illumined her latter days, and strength had not been given her to fight with grief. Alfred was awed into good resolution as he looked at the dumb inanimate clay. "I won't drink so much," he thought, "I'll try and be better. If Christopher Sly wins the Northumberland Plate, I shall be able to be better." And then a strange half-prayer dwelt in his mind, that Christopher Sly might win the race.

      To his side came old Wheels.

      "She looks like an old woman," he said; "almost too old to be my daughter."

      Alfred turned his eyes to the old man's face. Youth had not departed from it; it seemed indeed younger than the face of his dead daughter.

      "You were her first-born, Alfred. Think of the joy that filled her when she first pressed you in her arms, and look at her now. Time is but a breath--but a breath--but a breath!"

      Old Wheels mused of the time gone by, and wondered, as we all must wonder when we think of them and now, and of the changes that have occurred in our lives. The gay spirit chilled; the cheerful heart dulled by long suffering; the hope that made life bright dead and cold long, long ago--killed in the battle we have fought! But if love be left!—

      Ay, if love be left, all the bruises we have received in the fight, all the hurts and wounds, shall not make life despairing. The flowers we have gathered and held to our hearts shall never wither if love be left!

      "She looks very peaceful, grandfather," said Alfred almost in a whisper.

      "She is at peace; she is with God and nature."

      Better influences were stirred into action by the old man's words, and Alfred sank upon his knees by the bedside, and perhaps loved her better at that moment than ever he had done before.

      "I have heard," continued the old man, "that many faces in death assume the beauty they possessed in youth. I would give much that it had been so with your mother, and