The Eyes of the World | Page 3

one of the few who
understood that, to the woman herself, it was necessary.
There were those who--without understanding, for the sake of the years
that were gone--would have surrounded her with the material comforts
to which, in her younger days, she had been accustomed. The doctor
knew that there was one--a friend of her childhood, famous, now, in the
world of books--who would have come from the ends of the earth to
care for her. All that a human being could do for her, in those days of
her life's tragedy, that one had done. Then--because he understood--he
had gone away. Her own son did not know--could not, in his young
manhood, have understood, if he had known--would not understand
when he came. Perhaps, some day, he would understand--perhaps.
When the physician turned again toward the bed, to touch with gentle
fingers the wrist of his patient, his eyes were wet.
At his touch, her eyes opened to regard him with affectionate trust and
gratitude.
"Well Mary," he said almost bruskly.
The lips fashioned the ghost of a smile; into her eyes came the gleam of
that old time challenging spirit. "Well--Doctor George," she answered.
Then,--"I--told you--I would not--go--until he came. I must--have my
way--still--you see. He will--come--to-day He must come."

"Yes, Mary," returned the doctor,--his fingers still on the thin wrist, and
his eyes studying her face with professional keenness,--"yes, of
course."
"And George--you will not forget--your promise? You will--give me a
few minutes--of strength--when he comes--so that I can tell him?
I--I--must tell him myself--George. You--will do--this last thing--for
me?"
"Yes, Mary, of course," he answered again. "Everything shall be as you
wish--as I promised."
"Thank you--George. Thank you--my dear--dear--old friend."
The nurse--who had been standing at the window--stepped quickly to
the table that held a few bottles, glasses, and instruments. The doctor
looked at her sharply. She nodded a silent answer, as she opened a
small, flat, leather case. With his fingers still on his patient's wrist, the
physician spoke a word of instruction; and, in a moment, the nurse
placed a hypodermic needle in his hand.
As the doctor gave the instrument, again, to his assistant, a quick step
sounded in the hall outside.
The patient turned her head. Her eager eyes were fixed upon the door;
her voice--stronger, now, with the strength of the powerful
stimulant--rang out; "My boy--my boy--he is here! George, nurse, my
boy is here!"
The door opened. A young man of perhaps twenty-two years stood on
the threshold.
The most casual observer would have seen that he was a son of the
dying woman. In the full flush of his young manhood's vigor, there was
the same modeling of the mouth, the same nose with finely turned
nostrils, the same dark eyes under a breadth of forehead; while the
determined chin and the well-squared jaw, together with a rather
remarkable fineness of line, told of an inherited mental and spiritual

strength and grace as charming as it is, in these days, rare. His dress
was that of a gentleman of culture and social position. His very bearing
evidenced that he had never been without means to gratify the
legitimate tastes of a cultivated and refined intelligence.
As he paused an instant in the open door to glance about that poverty
stricken room, a look of bewildering amazement swept over his
handsome face. He started to draw back--as if he had unintentionally
entered the wrong apartment. Looking at the doctor, his lips parted as if
to apologize for his intrusion. But before he could speak, his eyes met
the eyes of the woman on the bed.
With a cry of horror, he sprang forward;--"Mother! Mother!"
As he knelt there by the bed, when the first moments of their meeting
were past, he turned his face toward the doctor. From the physician his
gaze went to the nurse, then back again to his mother's old friend. His
eyes were burning with shame and sorrow--with pain and doubt and
accusation. His low voice was tense with emotion, as he demanded,
"What does this mean? Why is my mother here like--like this?"--his
eyes swept the bare room again.
The dying woman answered. "I will explain, my boy. It is to tell you,
that I have waited."
At a look from the doctor, the nurse quietly followed the physician
from the room.
It was not long. When she had finished, the false strength that had kept
the woman alive until she had accomplished that which she conceived
to be her last duty, failed quickly.
"You will--promise--you will?"
"Yes, mother, yes."
"Your education--your training--your blood--they--are--all--that--I
can--give you, my son."

"O mother, mother! why did you not tell me before? Why did I not
know!" The cry was a protest--an expression of bitterest shame and
sorrow.
She smiled. "It--was--all that