"Rebecca'll have it right off the stove in half a minute now," Mrs. Savor
concluded; and from a further room came the cheerful click of cups, and
then a wandering whiff of the coffee; life in its vulgar kindliness touched
and made friends with death, claiming it a part of nature too.
The night at Mrs. Munger's came back to Annie from the immeasurable
remoteness into which all the past had lapsed. She looked up at Dr. Morrell
across the bed.
"Would you like to speak with Mr. Peck?" he asked officially. "Better do it
now," he said, with one of his short nods.
Putney came and set her a chair. She would have liked to fall on her knees
beside the bed; but she took the chair, and drew the minister's hand into
hers, stretching her arm above his head on the pillow. He lay like some
poor little wounded boy, like Putney's Winthrop; the mother that is in
every woman's heart gushed out of hers in pity upon him, mixed with filial
reverence. She had thought that she should confess her baseness to him, and
ask his forgiveness, and offer to fulfil with the people he had chosen for
the guardians of his child that interrupted purpose of his. But in the
presence of death, so august, so simple, all the concerns of life seemed
trivial, and she found herself without words. She sobbed over the poor hand
she held. He turned his eyes upon her and tried to speak, but his lips only
let out a moaning, shuddering sound, inarticulate of all that she hoped or
feared he might prophesy to shape her future.
Life alone has any message for life, but from the beginning of time it has
put its ear to the cold lips that must for ever remain dumb.