I don't think I shall be when my
father dies."
"Oh, Cosmo!--with such a good father as yours! I am shocked."
Her words struck a pang into her own heart, for she felt as if she
had compared his father and hers, over whom she was not miserable.
Cosmo turned, and looked at her. The sun was close upon the
horizon, and his level rays shone full on the face of the boy.
"Lady Joan," he said slowly, and with a tremble in his voice, "I
should just laugh with delight to have to die for my father. But if
he were taken from me now, I should be so proud of him, I should
have no room to be miserable. As God makes me glad though I cannot
see him, so my father would make me glad though I could not see
him. I cannot see him now, and yet I am glad because my father
IS--away down there in the old castle; and when he is gone from me,
I shall be glad still, for he will be SOMEWHERE all the same--with
God as he is now. We shall meet again one day, and run at each
other."
It was an odd phrase with which he ended, but Lady Joan did not
laugh.
The sun was down, and the cold, blue gray twilight came creeping
from the east. They turned and walked home, through a luminous
dusk. It would not be dark all night, though the moon did not rise
till late, for the snow gave out a ghostly radiance. Surely it must
be one of those substances that have the power of drinking and
hoarding the light of the sun, that with their memories of it they
may thin the darkness! I suspect everything does it more or less.
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