'It's the picter he means,' said the wife. 'He sat up most all last night a doing it.'
I lighted all the candles, and Ermine brought forward the easel; upon it stood a sketch in charcoal wonderful to behold,--the same face, the face of the faded wife, but so noble in its idealized beauty that it might have been a portrait of her glorified face in Paradise. It was a profile, with the eyes upturned,--a mere outline, but grand in conception and expression. I gazed in silent astonishment.
Ermine said, 'Yes, I knew you could do it, Solomon. It is perfect of its kind.' The shadow of a smile stole over the pallid face, and then the husband's fading gaze turned upward to meet the wild, dark eyes of the wife.
'It's you, Dorcas,' he murmured; 'that's how you looked to me, but I never could get it right before.' She bent over him, and silently we watched the coming of the shadow of death; he spoke only once, 'My rose of Sharon--' And then in a moment he was gone, the poor artist was dead.
Wild, wild was the grief of the ungoverned heart left behind; she was like a mad-woman, and our united strength was needed to keep her from injuring herself in her frenzy. I was frightened, but Ermine's strong little hands and lithe arms kept her down until, exhausted, she lay motionless near her dead husband. Then we carried her down stairs and I watched by the bedside, while my cousin went back to the studio. She was absent some time, and then she came back to keep the vigil with me through the long, still night. At dawn the woman woke, and her face looked aged in the gray light. She was quiet, and took without a word the food we had prepared awkwardly enough, in the keeping-room.
'I must go to him, I must go to him.' she murmured, as we led her back.
'Yes,' said Ermine, 'but first let me make you tidy. He loved to see you neat.' And with deft, gentle touch she dressed the poor creature, arranging the heavy hair so artistically that, for the first time, I saw what she might have been, and understood the husband's dream.
'What is that?' I said, as a peculiar sound startled us.
'It's Roarer. He was tied up last night, but I suppose he's gnawed the rope,' said the woman. I opened the hall door, and in stalked the great dog, smelling his way directly up the stairs.