If you will be, I'll go back to Janet and leave the lantern
here with you." "Yes, that will be the best thing to do.
I may not be ready to go home for some time yet," said Mr. Leonard,
thinking that the death-bed of sin behind him was no sight
for Felix's young eyes.
"Is that your grandson you're talking to?" Naomi spoke clearly
and strongly. The spasm had passed. "If it is, bring him in.
I want to see him."
Reluctantly, Mr. Leonard signed Felix to enter. The boy stood
by Naomi's bed and looked down at her with sympathetic eyes.
But at first she did not look at him--she looked past him
at the minister.
"I might have died in that spell," she said, with sullen
reproach in her voice, "and if I had, I'd been in hell now.
You can't help me--I'm done with you. There ain't any hope for me,
and I know it now."
She turned to Felix.
"Take down that fiddle on the wall and play something for me,"
she said imperiously. "I'm dying--and I'm going to hell--
and I don't want to think of it. Play me something
to take my thoughts off it--I don't care what you play.
I was always fond of music--there was always something in it
for me I never found anywhere else."
Felix looked at his grandfather.
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