I opened them. Yes, I knew it. There
at the desk was the beautiful gray-clad figure of five years ago. There
the two arms resting on the desk. There the two beautiful hands holding
the open paper, but the eyes, those marvellous gray-blue doors to an
immortal soul--they were closed forever. The exquisitely beautiful face
was cold and white and peaceful. Beulah Sands was dead. The hell-hounds of
the "System" had overtaken its maimed and hunted victim; it had added her
beautiful heart to the bags and barrels and hogsheads stored away in its
big "business-is-business" safe-deposit vaults. My eyes in sick pity
sought the form of my old schoolmate, my college chum, my partner, my
friend, the man I loved. He was on his knees. His agonised face was turned
to his wife. His clasped hands had been raised in an awful, heart-crushing
prayer as his Maker touched the bell. Bob Brownley's great brown eyes were
closed, his clasped hands had dropped against his wife's head, and in
dropping had unloosed the glorious golden-brown waves until in fond
abandon they had coiled around his arms and brow as though she for whom
he had sacrificed all was shielding his beloved head from the chills and
dark mists of the black river that laps the brink of the eternal rest.
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