I told him as we hastened back some of the facts
of the case, and he brought his writing materials into the sick room
and took down from the Major's own lips the words which would have
the effect of dividing the old man's possessions between his two
sons. Dr. Mackrill was now present; he stood on one side of the
bed, his fingers on the dying man's pulse. On the other side stood
Derrick, a degree paler and graver than usual, but revealing little
of his real feelings.
"Word it as briefly as you can," said the doctor.
And the lawyer scribbled away as though for his life, while the rest
of us waited in a wretched hushed state of tension. In the room
itself there was no sound save the scratching of the pen and the
laboured breathing of the old man; but in the next house we could
hear someone playing a waltz. Somehow it did not seem to me
incongruous, for it was 'Sweethearts,' and that had been the
favourite waltz of Ben Rhydding, so that I always connected it with
Derrick and his trouble, and now the words rang in my ears:
"Oh, love for a year, a week, a day,
But alas! for the love that loves alway.
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