By four o’clock it was apparent that death was near. Ben had brief periods of consciousness, unconsciousness, and delirium—but most of the time he was delirious. His breathing was easier, he hummed snatches of popular songs, some old and forgotten, called up now from the lost and secret adyts of his childhood; but always he returned, in his quiet humming voice, to a popular song of war— time—cheap, sentimental, but now tragically moving: “Just a Baby’s Prayer at Twilight,”
"… when lights are low. Poor baby’s years"
Helen entered the darkening room.
“Are filled with tears.”
The fear had gone out of his eyes: above his gasping he looked gravely at her, scowling, with the old puzzled child’s stare. Then, in a moment of fluttering consciousness, he recognized her. He grinned beautifully, with the thin swift flicker of his mouth.
“Hello, Helen! It’s Helen!” he cried eagerly.
She came from the room with a writhen and contorted face, holding the sobs that shook her until she was half-way down the stairs.
As darkness came upon the gray wet day, the family gathered in the parlor, in the last terrible congress before death, silent, waiting. Gant rocked petulantly, spitting into the fire, making a weak whining moan from time to time. One by one, at intervals, they left the room, mounting the stairs softly, and listening outside the door of the sick-room. And they heard Ben, as, with incessant humming repetition, like a child, he sang his song,
"There’s a mother there at twilight Who’s glad to know—"
Eliza sat stolidly, hands folded, before the parlor fire. Her dead white face had a curious carven look; the inflexible solidity of madness.
“Well,” she said at length, slowly, “you never know. Perhaps this
