# Greater Love Hath No Man/Chapter 29

CHAPTER XXIX
THE HOUSE OF DEATH
IT was Doctor MacCausland, the old confrère of Doctor Merton, who admitted them to the house; and who, after a kindly word to Varge, drew Doctor Kreelmar to one side.
"This was against my wish and advice," he said, in a grave undertone. "She is very low and liable to go at any moment, but her mind is still clear and she keeps asking for him constantly. I haven't the heart to refuse—it seems the one thing she wants, and ultimately it can make but little difference as the end is inevitable—a matter of hours at best."
Doctor Kreelmar nodded soberly.
"The warden telephoned you?" he asked.
"Yes," Doctor MacCausland answered; "and I told her you were coming, but she knows you are here now—she heard the buggy wheels. We had better go up. Harold and the nurse are with her and she has insisted that we should all be present."
"Hum!" said Doctor Kreelmar, rubbing his under lip with the knuckle of his thumb and the tip of his forefinger. "What's Harold say about it?"
"Emphatically opposed to it from the first," replied Doctor MacCausland. "He brought on a very bad sinking spell an hour ago from which I was afraid she would not rally by positively refusing to be present. Even that ​was barely enough to make him consent. He has not been himself lately, especially since I told him two days ago that there was absolutely no hope for his mother. He is not at all well and has taken it very hard indeed; in fact, his condition is such as to cause me serious anxiety—and he won't listen to advice."
"Hum!" said Doctor Kreelmar again. "Well, then, shall we go up?" He turned and walked back to the door, where he had left Varge standing. "Follow Doctor MacCausland," he said briefly.
"Yes," Varge said quietly, as he obeyed. It seemed as though he were present in some strange place, not actually, but sub-consciously present, and in this strange place the surroundings were strangely familiar, as if, in some other state, they had been part of his life—the pattern of the stair carpet, he remembered every one of the little zigzag lines, the little flowers on the dark-green background—that closed door at the right of the hallway, as he had entered. There was a heaviness upon him, oppressing his heart—a great weight that seemed to bear his shoulders down and deprive his steps of buoyancy, his mind of the vitality to rouse itself to the effort of analysis.
Mechanically he followed Doctor MacCausland. They reached the head of the stairs and turned along the upper hallway—and then, suddenly, the mist, the fog, the apathy was gone from him. They were standing before the door of the front-room—her room—the scene of her gentle chidings, her reproofs for childhood's waywardness—where, at her knee when bedtime came, he had learned to lisp out "Now I lay me"—where, as he grew older, she had taught him to say—"Our Father."
​Softly Doctor MacCausland opened the door and motioned Varge forward.
A man with his back turned—Harold Merton—stood at the window; a nurse, in uniform and cap, rose from a chair at the far side of the bed. Varge looked at neither—it was only the smoothly parted silver hair, the sweet, gentle face it crowned he saw—and it was the past upon him, the past of long ago, with all the old dear, tender intimacy of other years—when she had been his mother. There was eagerness in his step, in his arms—that were involuntarily stretched out toward her. And then halfway to the bed he stopped, his arms dropped to his sides and a greyness crept to his lips. She had turned away her head and covered her face with both her hands.
Doctor MacCausland and Doctor Kreelmar entered the room quietly. The dark eyes of Harold Merton, like burning fires they seemed in his drawn, chalky face, shot a glance over his shoulder—there was a soft rustle of the nurse's dress, as she bent forward a little over the bed.
Between her hands Mrs. Merton's lips moved silently.
Suddenly Varge straightened in a strange, alert, startled way, as though listening intently—that breathing—his trained ear knew it well. He turned, and for an instant looked full into Doctor MacCausland's face; then turned again, his eyes, troubled, anxious, upon the bed.
Slowly Mrs. Merton uncovered her face, and her hand reached out to him.
"Yes; come," she whispered, and tried to smile. "That is—that is why I asked for you."
Through a mist now Varge saw her—but through ​the mist he read it all. On his knees by the side of the bed, he buried his face in his hands and bowed his head on the counterpane. Doctor Kreelmar had told him she was very ill; Doctor Kreelmar had not told him—that she was dying—that the end was very near. And he had not seen it at first—only the same dear face that he had always known had come back to the galleries of his memory like a retouched picture—he had not seen the change at first—the change that comes but once—forever.
She seemed to be speaking again, very slowly, almost inaudibly—as though to herself—and he could not catch the words. Then her voice rose stronger in fervent earnestness—she was repeating the Lord's Prayer.
"… Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive them that trespass against us—"
She did not finish—her voice failed, and there was no sound in the room save a low, suppressed sob from the nurse across the bed.
Presently she spoke again—with an effort, with long pauses when weakness overcame her.
"I have loved you all your life, Varge, almost as though you had been my own boy—but I could not forgive … Harold set me the example and forgave you long ago, but I could not … I have prayed that I might, but I could not, for in my bitterness I forgot that I was the only mother you had ever known … and that—that perhaps I had failed in some way in my duty to you … that I had not tried as I should have tried when you were a little child to make you strong for the years to come."
​Blinding hot the tears were raining through Varge's hands—the great shoulders shook.
Her hand found his head and rested upon it.
"I am going home, Varge," she said. "It would have been very terrible to go in bitterness … for He taught us to ask for forgiveness for ourselves as we forgave others … I could not do it with my own strength, but He has answered my prayer and now I can forgive, Varge … I forgive … and I have asked Him for pardon for you, too."
The nurse was sobbing audibly now; wet-eyed, both doctors bowed their heads; Harold Merton was facing the bed, his shoulders bent a little forward, his eyes staring at the scene as though they were held upon it by some horrible fascination that he could not overcome. Varge's face was still buried in his hands—there were no words to say—grief seemed to rend wide his soul; the awfulness of the unconscious irony to appal him.
Again a stillness fell upon the room—a long stillness—and then again she spoke, very faintly, struggling for her words.
"Once—that day—those terrible words I said to you—I have asked for forgiveness for them too—and He seemed to bid me ask it first from you … you will forgive me, Varge, and—and try never to remember them—Varge—"
His hand reached up to where hers lay upon his head and drew it down and held it against his face.
"Tell me so, Varge," she whispered.
"I have forgotten them long, long ago," he said brokenly.
Her fingers tightened over his, held there for a little ​while, and then, as though strength failed them, fell away.
"It is growing dark," she said. "Harold, are you there? Come nearer—I—I want you to—"
There fell again the silence—then a step sounded behind Varge, and Doctor MacCausland leaned quickly over the bed.
Varge raised his head. She lay back upon the pillows, a great stillness, a great peace upon her face—as though she were asleep. For a moment he looked at her, then he rose from his knees and turned away, seeing nothing, heeding nothing, walking from the room as a blind man walks.
He reached the hall—and, shocked, stood suddenly still, as a fearful cry in shuddering cadence, a cry of the damned, rang through the house.
"Dead!"—it was Harold Merton's voice.
And then the man came rushing upon him from the room, and was pawing at his arms, his shoulders.
"She's dead!" he babbled horribly, wildly, insanely. "She's dead—but you said you'd never speak, Varge—you swore you'd never speak—"
Upon Varge in a lightning flash, as he stared into the distorted face, swept the meaning of it all—he had not thought of that; he had not expected Mrs. Merton's death—the other had—had expected it for days—and now—Merton was still grasping at him, grasping at his hands; still babbling in the same horrid way.
"—You swore you'd never speak, Varge—you remember that day in the penitentiary—you swore you'd never speak—you—"
Doctor Kreelmar had stepped suddenly from the ​doorway, stepped between them and his hand fell like a vise on Merton's arm. There was a grim, bulldog look on his face as he thrust it close to Merton's.
"Speak of what?" he said, in a low, cold voice.
Merton's face, white, full of terror before, was ghastly now—his eyes were fired with a mad light. He clawed at his collar, and tore at it again and again—clawed at it, swaying upon his feet, until he had got it loose.
"It's a lie!—a lie!—a lie!—a lie!" he screamed—and wriggled inertly to the floor.
"Good heavens!" cried Doctor MacCausland, as he came running into the hall. "What has happened? Ah, I see! I was afraid of this—afraid of a collapse, as I told you. Poor boy, it's been too much for him!"
"Hum!" said Doctor Kreelmar grimly. "Yes; I think it has."