Oh, Death, king of terrors! The body quakes and the
spirit faints before thee. It is vain, with hands clasped over our eyes, to
scream our reclamation; the horrible image will not be excluded. We have
just the word spoken eighteen hundred years ago, and our trembling faith.
And through the broken vault the gleam of the Star of Bethlehem.
I was glad in a sort of agony when it was over. So long as it remained to
be done, something of the catastrophe was still suspended. Now it was all
over.
The house so strangely empty. No owner--no master! I with my strange
momentary liberty, bereft of that irreplaceable love, never quite prized
until it is lost. Most people have experienced the dismay that underlies
sorrow under such circumstances.
The apartment of the poor outcast from life is now dismantled. Beds and
curtains taken down, and furniture displaced; carpets removed, windows open
and doors locked; the bedroom and anteroom were henceforward, for many a
day, uninhabited. Every shocking change smote my heart like a reproach.
I saw that day that Cousin Monica had been crying for the first time, I
think, since her arrival at Knowl; and I loved her more for it, and felt
consoled.
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