Yet he was cruelly conscious of the
disaster which had come to him. For a time at least. Then his mind seemed
less acute, the visions came, then without seeing them go, they went. And
others came in broken patches, shreds, and dreams, phantasmagoria of the
brain, and at last all were mingled and confused; but as they passed they
seemed to burn his sight. How he longed for a cool bandage over his eyes,
for a soft linen which would shut out the cumuli of broken hopes and
designs, life's goals obliterated! He had had enough of the black
procession of futile things.
His longing was not denied, for even as he roused himself from the
oblivion coming on him, as though by a last effort to remember his dire
misfortune, maybe his everlasting tragedy, something soothing and soft
like linen dipped in dew was laid upon his forehead. A cool, delicious
hand covered his eyes caressingly; a voice from spheres so far away that
worlds were the echoing points of the sound, came whispering to him like
a stir of wings in a singing grove. With a last effort to remain in the
waking world, he raised his head so very little, but fell gently back
again with one sighing word on his lips:
"Fleda!"
It was no illusion. Fleda had come from her own night of trouble to his
motherless, wifeless home, and would not be denied admittance by the
nurse.
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