The sick room was darkened and a nurse sat by the bedside. Theodore
stood for a moment looking down on the face so dear to him, and so
changed even in the few hours since last he saw it. He longed to press
his lips to the hand that lay outstretched on the white coverlet, but
he did not dare, and after a moment he turned and left the room in
silence.
Mrs. Martin followed him down the stairs. At the door he stopped and
looked at her, tried to speak but could not, and so went away without
a word. He knew that never again should he see his friend alive, and
he did not. Before the next night, the bishop had been called to go up
higher.
When the announcement of his death appeared in the papers there was a
request that no flowers be sent. Theodore did not notice this item,
and so on the day of the funeral he carried to the house some of the
roses that he knew the bishop had loved most, and Mrs. Martin herself
placed them in the cold hand that a few days before, had been laid
upon Theodore's head. All the gold of the earth, had it been offered
to the boy, could not have purchased from him the sweet memory of that
last look and touch.
On the day of the funeral, the church where the service was held was
crowded, and the streets without were filled with a throng as vast as
that to which so short a time before, the bishop had spoken, but what
a difference was there in look and manner between the two great
gatherings! Here, every face was softened, every heart tender with
grief.
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