N

Night at last.

Every one at length gone away; everything arranged; the house still and solemn.

His father had left him alone for a little with the dead boy. At last!...

His sorrow, which before the strangers he had kept swallowed down, he need hide no longer. There was no one to hear, no one to see. And he knelt beside the bed and stroked the smooth cold cheek. He kissed the cold mouth and stroked the soft dark hair from which all stain had been washed; and he put his arms about the body. And he remembered the boy as he had stood before him that afternoon in all his wonderful beauty. His tears fell fast and blindingly. The sobs rising to his throat almost choked him.

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