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The light of the lamp seemed to have grown so ghostly that the nurse had turned it out, and, drawing the blinds, let the faint morning light come in. It fell on the beautiful face that had grown even whiter in the presence of death. Lady Charlewood was dying; yet the feeble arms held the little child tightly. She looked up as her husband entered the room.
The hour of wakening was to come Stephen Letsom never forgot it. The bereaved man was frantic in his grief, mad with the sense of his loss. Then the doctor, knowing how one great sorrow counteracts another, spoke of his father, reminding him that if he wished to see him alive he must take some little care of himself. "I shall not leave her!" cried Lord Charlewood.
Some one raised the sweet head from his breast, and laid it back upon the pillow. He knew she was dead. He tried to bear it; he said to himself that he must be a man, that he had to live for his child's sake. He tried to rise, but the strength of his manhood failed him. With a cry never forgotten by those who heard it, Lord Charlewood fell with his face on the ground. Seven o'clock.
I shall send you half-yearly checks and you may expect me in three years from this at latest; then my little Madaline will be of a manageable age, and I can take her to Wood Lynton." So they parted, the two who had been so strangely brought together parted with a sense of liking and trust common among Englishmen who feel more than they express. Lord Charlewood looked round him as he left the town.
"If ever a dead face told of rest and peace, hers does; I have never seen such a smile on any other." "I should like to find her a grave where the sun shines and the dew falls," observed Lord Charlewood "where grass and flowers grow and birds sing in the trees overhead. She would not seem so far away from me then."
Let me first of all introduce myself to you as Lord Charlewood. I am the only son of the Earl of Mountdean, and my father lies dying in Italy. I came of age only last year, and at the same time I fell in love. Now I am not in any way dependent on my father the title and estate are entailed but I love him. In these degenerate days it seems perhaps strange to hear a son say that he loves his father.
Stephen Letsom was too clever a man and too wise a doctor to make any endeavor to stem such a torrent of grief. He knew that it must have its way. He sat patiently listening, speaking when he thought a word would be useful; and Lord Charlewood never knew how much he owed to his kind, unwearied patience.
The question seemed almost ironical to the doctor, who had so much more time to spare than he cared to have. He sat down by Lord Charlewood's side, and they held together the conversation that led to such strange results. "I should not like a cold, stone grave for my beautiful wife," said Lord Charlewood.
"Here is the first you may as well keep it with the rest," said Lord Charlewood; "it is a copy of my marriage certificate. Then you have here the certificates of my little daughter's birth and of my poor wife's death. Now we will add to these a signed agreement between you and myself for the sum I have spoken about."
If the Euphrates Valley Railway had ever been opened, if the terminus of this railway had been at Koweit, as it was proposed by the party of survey under the command of Admiral Charlewood and General Chesney, the Bahrein group would at once have sprung into importance as offering a safe emporium in the immediate vicinity of this terminus. Bahrein is the Cyprus of the Persian Gulf, in fact.
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