The Storyteller

New Zealand Tablet, 23 November 1911, Page 2339

The Storyteller

THE MIRACLE (Concluded from last week.) 'You admit that, then?' ' Certainly I do; just as I know that behind all the surface bitterness was a warm, generous, suffering heart. Oh, I wish I could have let her know how I understood her and how I loved her. But it is too late now.' She bowed her face over the dying woman's hand, while the tears flowed unchecked down her cheeks. ' I believe you do care, Allie, but it is your own lovely, loyal nature that makes you see things so differently from the rest of us. How many do you suppose think as you do?' * More than you imagine. Hugh, but like me, they were too poor to dare to be natural.' ' Well, I am not going to let you stay here tonight on any account. You look utterly fagged out as it is, and Mrs. Lenox is in no immediate danger. I will have you sent for should I see any marked change, but you must go home now, Allie. It is not just to yourself to put your nerves to such useless strain.' 'You will be sure and send?' ' I promise you.' 'The change may be very sudden?' ' It may be, but I don't think so.' ' Good-bye, then,' she whispered, stooping to press her lips to the great lady's cold cheek. God bless you and have you in His keeping.' Miss Conway's white dress had scarcely fluttered out of the downstairs front door before a frightened servant came hurrying through the hall. Mrs. Lenox has spoken. She is asking for Mr. Fressenden, the doctor says. We must telephone for Mr. Fressenden at once.' Mr. Fressenden 'himself, hearing the unseemly noise and his own name called loudly, came out of the library, book in hand, to inquiie what the meaning of the excitement was. ' Mrs. Lenox has spoken. She is asking for you, Mi*. Fressenden,' explained the maid. _ Mr. Fressenden climbed the stairs rapidly, a peculiar expression playing about the corners of his cynical mouth. * What, if after all ?' he said; ' what, if after all V 'Mrs. Lenox,' he said gently, when he stood by the sick woman's bed, 'I am here, Fressenden. They told me you wanted me. Is there anything I can do?' There was a moment's breathless silence. Then, in a hoarse, unnatural voice, the woman who had not spoken for three days gasped: ' Paper——my will changed—write what I—tell you!' Drawing a tablet from his pocket and rapidly adjusting his gold pen, he said: 'I am ready, Mrs. Lenox.' Scarcely expecting a reply, he was amazed by the clear composure of her directions. 'You have the date? (Then write 'This is my last will and testament. I revoke all others made by me. I give all I die possessed of to Alice Von Sternberg Conway. Because—'—the hoarse, difficult voice faltered for the first time—' because she was faithful to me when others failed.' Fressenden wrote hurriedly, casting now and then an anxious glance at the rigid figure on the bed. Would she have strength and understanding enough to sign her name before lapsing back into unconsciousness ..- ' Mrs. Lenox,' he encouraged, and clasped her stiff fingers about the pen, 'this is where you must sign.' And he carefully guided her hand to the spot With a nervous energy that was bewildering in one so near the borderland of death, she traced her name ' Agatha Katharine Lenox.' ' Witnesses,' she breathed rather than spoke and the pen, falling from her fingers, rolled out upon the counterpane.

Fressenden motioned the maids and nurse to approach, and within a few minutes the will was a complete legal document, that the highest courts of. the country would have found it difficult to overthrow. ' Mrs. Lenox,' said Fressenden, with rare Reeling in his careless, voice, ' I am rejoiced to see you so much stronger.' But there was no reply. The marvellous will that had made her so dominant a figure in life and which had enabled her to drag herself back from the very gates of death, had failed at last, and she was already closed around with the unconsciousness that lasted until she died, a day or two later. The world's comments when the will was made public were many and varied, but Mrs. Carr perhaps put the general feeling into words with the greatest conciseness ' Amazing, of course; but it's really something of a relief, tooto find in these material, self-seeking times a .genuine case of virtue being rewarded. I for one cannot say I am sorry.'