The Christmas Peace | Page 8

His health had suddenly given way, and he was in danger of becoming blind. His doctor had given him his orders--orders which possibly he might not have taken had not the spectre of a lonely old man in total darkness begun to haunt him. He had been "working too hard," the doctor told him.
"Working hard! Of course, I have been working hard!" snapped the General, fiercely, with his black eyes glowering. "What else have I to do but work? I shall always work hard."
The doctor knew something of the General 's trouble. He had been a surgeon in the hospital where young Oliver Hampden had been when Lucy Drayton found him.
"You must stop," he said, quietly. "You will not last long unless you do."
"How long!" demanded the General, quite calmly.
"Oh! I cannot say that. Perhaps, a year--perhaps, less. You have burned your candle too fast." He glanced at the other's unmoved face. "You need change. You ought to go South this winter."
"I should only change my skies and not my thoughts," said the General, his memory swinging back to the past.
The doctor gazed at him curiously. "What is the use of putting out your eyes and working yourself to death when you have everything that money can give?"
"I have nothing! I work to forget that," snarled the General, fiercely.
The doctor remained silent.
The General thought over the doctor's advice and finally followed it, though not for the reason the physician supposed.
Something led him to select the place where his son had gone and where his body lay amid the magnolias. If he was going to die, he would carry out a plan which he had formed in the lonely hours when he lay awake between the strokes of the clock. He would go and see that his son's grave was cared for, and if he could, would bring him back home at last. Doubtless, "that woman's" consent could be bought. She had possibly married again. He hoped she had.

VI
Christmas is always the saddest of seasons to a lonely man, and General Hampden, when he landed in that old Southern town on the afternoon of Christmas Eve, would not have been lonelier in a desert. The signs of Christmas preparation and the sounds of Christmas cheer but made him lonelier. For years, flying from the Furies, he had immersed himself in work and so, in part, had forgotten his troubles; but the removal of this prop let him fall flat to the earth.
As soon as the old fellow had gotten settled in his room at the hotel he paid a visit to his son's grave, piloted to the cemetery by a friendly and garrulous old negro hackman, who talked much about Christmas and "the holidays."
"Yes, suh, dat he had known Cap'n Ham'n. He used to drive him out long as he could drive out. He had been at his funeral. He knew Mrs. Ham'n, too. She sutney is a fine lady," he wound up in sincere eulogy.
The General gave a grunt.
He was nearer to his son than he had ever been since the day he last saw him in all the pride and beauty of a gallant young soldier.
The grave, at least, was not neglected. It was marked by a modest cross, on which was the Hampden coat-of-arms and the motto, "Loyal," and it was banked in fresh evergreens, and some flowers had been placed on it only that afternoon. It set the General to thinking.
When he returned to his hotel, he found the loneliness unbearable. His visit to his son's grave had opened the old wound and awakened all his memories. He knew now that he had ruined his life. The sooner the doctor's forecast came true, the better. He had no care to live longer. He would return to work and die in harness.
He sent his servant to the office and arranged for his car to be put on the first train next morning.
Then, to escape from his thoughts, he strolled out in the street where the shopping crowds streamed along, old and young, poor and well-to-do, their arms full of bundles, their faces eager, and their eyes alight.
General Hampden seemed to himself to be walking among ghosts.
As he stalked on, bitter and lonely, he was suddenly run into by a very little boy, in whose small arms was so big a bundle that he could scarcely see over it. The shock of the collision knocked the little fellow down, sitting flat on the pavement, still clutching his bundle. But his face after the first shadow of surprise lit up again.
"I beg your pardon, sir--that was my fault," he said, with so quaint an imitation of an old person that the General could not help smiling. With a cheery laugh, he tried to rise to his feet, but the bundle