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Page 38
"At night, when I awoke
From a dense painful sleep, there was a face,
Whose smiles I could believe in, watching me.
My father said Emilio summoned him,
With two wild blotted lines, to care for me
While he was gone. And presently we found
A little sealed up paper near my hand
'Thou hast willed it. Dear one, I am gone to force
Thy welcome from my father. Then perhaps
Thou wilt begin to pardon. If I fail
I am a beggar and I shall not dare
Stand in thy sight again.'
"I sent no word
Of answer. What had I to write? My hope
Was but to be forgotten from his life,
His way and mine for evermore apart.
I sent no word. And many days went by
As silent of him to me as if death
Had crept between us. Then at length the news
Was blared out of loud rumour's brassy throat,
Of his new latest shame.
"By night and day,
In mad repentance, he had hurried on:
Then, entering his father's house, was met
By news that the old man had yesterday
Been struck down sudden, as it seemed, with death.
But, so the servants said, as if possessed
By frenzy, he made answer in a cry
Of 'Lota! Lota! Am I then too late?'
And the next moment, by his father's bed,
Was blurting out in one great gush of words
The story of his marriage. But, they said,
The old man, keen in mind as ever, yet
Seemed to have put off every interest
Save for the one great matter of his own,
The saving of his soul. 'Oh fool!' he said,
'And twice a fool to tell thy folly now.
Well, well, I've but a little time to live,
We'll let it be as if I had not heard.
Keep thine own counsel, thou .... Thy cousin makes
A very son-like nurse. Hast seen him yet?'
And then he bade Emilio read to him,
Smooth down his pillows, give him cooling drink;
And once he murmured 'Aye 'tis pleasanter
To have one's son beside one at the last.'
And the old dame, Emilio's foster-mother,
Who kept the sick man's room by day and night,
Declared it comforted and made her cry
To see the two seem drawn so much more near
Than ever they were yet since baby-days.
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