The Witness

ously but a few short minutes before, they carried him, up two

rner gas-stove. Courtland was hungry, and it struck his nostrils pleasantly as the door swung open, revealing a tiny

child's cot bed. Courtland gently laid down the little inert figure. The girl was on her knees beside the child at

ed, quiet voice. "No, I don't know who; I've only been here

ay he was seeing the beautiful agony of the girl's face. It was as if her suffering had been his own. S

n the sheets. He was more like a broken lily than e

ake room for the cot. There was just barely room to walk around between the things. He could almost hear the

ame, two bits of bread-and-butter plates to match; two glasses of milk; a plate of bread, another of butter; and by way of dessert an apple cut in half, the core dug out and the hollow fill

wife to give you my battery!" co

d breast of the child, listening for the heart-beats, and the beautiful girl's anguish as she stood above them. He pushed asid

ess his heart!" wailed one woman. "He a

y! They'll be a day o' reckonin' fer them rich folks what rides in 'em! They'

again just coincidence that he should have happened to stand at that corner at that particular moment and been one to participate in this later tragedy? Oh, the beautiful face of the suffering girl! Fear and sorrow and suffering and death everywhere! Wittemore hurrying to his dying mother! The old woman lying on her bed of pain! But there had been glory in that dark old room when he left it, the glory of a Presence! Ah! Where was the Presence now? How cou

now, strangely enough, he began to feel there was an answer to it so

k in the tiny room where life waited on death. It was another eternity while the doctor worked again over t

, gruffly, turning his

d him aside and sank to her

once more before you go?" she called, clearly, distinctly, as if to

left! Let me hear you call me Bonnie

the lips of the girl looking down upon the li

l I had! Good-by!" And she stooped and kissed the boy's lips with a finality tha

were rolling down his cheeks. "It's tough

coming to his own face. Then he heard the girl's voice again, lower,

hat he is not afraid till he gets safe home? And wi

handkerchief. The girl rose calmly, white and controlled

"I'm only a stranger and you've been very kind. But

could see that. Yet it wrung

ke some arrangements

id, looking from one to another of them anxiously. "I haven't much money left. Perhaps I could sell something!" She looked desperately ar

now a place where they would look after the matter for you reasonably and let you pay later or take

irl, wearily. "But it is askin

after it on my way home. J

tter, anyway, now. There'll have to be a place somewhere, too. Some time I will take him back and let him lie by father a

on, but only asked, "I

rgyman?" asked t

een to church yet. I was too tired. If

o. And I operated this afternoon on a hardened old reprobate around the corner here, that's played the devil to everybody, and he's g

other way of looking at the matter; a possibility that the wicked old reprobate had yet something more to learn of life before he went beyond its ch

ght the other world so close. It made what had hitherto seemed the big worth-while things of life look so small and petty, so ephemeral! Had he always been giving

all acting? Did earthly things appeal to them? How could they bear it all, this continual settled sadness about the place! The awful hush! The tear-stained faces! The heavy breath of flowers! Not all the lofty marble arches, and beauty of surroundings, not all the soft music of hidden choirs and distant organ up in one of the halls above where a service was even then in progress, could take away the fact of death; the settled, final fact of death! One moment here

gh to understand. It came to him to wonder what the fellows would say If they could see him here. He felt half a grudge toward Wittemore for

erywhere! It seemed as

r, with nothing to annoy. He even thought to order flowers, valley-lilies, and some bright rosebuds, not too many to make her feel under obligation. He took out his check-book and paid for the whole thing, arrangi

ast life looked to him as he surveyed it from the height he had just climbed. Life! Life was not all basket-ball, and football, and dances, and fellowships, and frats. and honors! Life was full of sorrow, an

ntment on all the older faces. And the younger ones! Did all their bright smiles and eagerness have to be frozen on their lips by grief some day? When you came to think of it life was a

d resolutions, a lot of black drapery, and all that sort of thing in college, but what did that amount to? His father? Oh yes, of course he would feel it some, but he had been separ

tered the dormitory at last, too engrossed in his stra

e looked everywhere for you. You didn't come to th

to Bill Ward's room and thumped h

yourself!" he said, tossing his hat over to

ed Pat from the couch where he

Greek exam.," suggested

n a ghost!" said Tennell

lled home. His mother's dying. I went an errand for him down in some of his slums and on

d Pat from his couch. "

Ward, coming to his feet. "

d shook

re while I run down to the pi

were closed. He hadn't felt so tired since he left the hospital. His mind was still

up the unresisting Courtland and laid him on the couch. Pat's face was unusually sober

ever noticed there before. As he dropped his eyelids shut he had an odd sense that Pat and Tennelly and the

ing each answer as though to make the whole dormitory hear.

phone wants you, Court. Says