Santa Fe daily New Mexican. [volume] (Santa Fe, N.M.) 1885-1897, 1895-07-27
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ing sky.
The Beauty was very poor at that time
and was working with redoubled energy
at the picture, for 1t must be finished by
certain date, and there was much yet to
do. Perhaps insufficient nourishment and
want of exercise and hard work all told
upon frame that was never Of the strong
est. Certainly the Beauty fell Ill one even
ing, fainting as he laid aside his brushes,
and was in the torments Of high fever
for many weeks. The friends who heard of
1t and came to see him found Tim, with
q white face, Installed as nurse She
promptly ordered them away.
sect to your work, boys" she said as
she thrust them out of the door. "He
wants woman here. I've nursed some Of
you before; leave me to 1t now. III tell
you II I want help. But 1t is little
thing"
Surely man was never watched and
tended on this sorrowful earth before nor
since as Tim watched and tended the
Beauty. In all his worst rawlings she never
left him. To the kindly doctor who sug
gested that she must rest she held out q
firm young hand, and with all her eyes in
the appeal begged that he would test her
pulse.
II am firm and quiet and strong" she
said steadily. "What moro would you
wantS'
And the doctor looked perplexed, but
patted her cheek and left her with the
Beauty.
She found that all her patients rawlings
took but one turn, Wheresoeyer they
might begin they came back always to one
point, and that one point was his unfln-
ished picture Now it was finished, he
thought, and had been accepted. Again
he would cry bitterly that the days were
passing, and that they were holding him
back from it, and that 1t would never DO
completed in time, and he would struggle
to get out of bed, even In his awful weak
ness, to reach the picture.
Tim we'll knew that the time was short.
and she thought with despair of tho un-
completed canvas, and of all that 1t was
to have done, and of all that it would new
er do now. She had had half formed
hope in her mind at first that he might
sometimes in his delirium cry her namc,
and she listened eagerly, but he spoke al
ways Of the picture.
At last one day, when it wanted but q
week to the time when the pictures must
be sent In, he suddenly cried her name,
and she ran to him and bent over him.
"Tim-Tim," he whispered, scarcely
knowing her, "the picture, tho picture!
Will 1t never be done-will it never be
done? o God, how they hold me back i!
Will no one help lneP 1t is my life-my
life!'
He exhausted himself presently and lay
quiet, and she stole away, with tear be-
dimmed eyes, into his studio and uncover
ed the great picture. So near and yet SO
far, she thought If he could but start
now, the picture might be completed.
She went softly back into the room again
and found him apparently sleeping. Grad
ually she slipped down beside the bed on
her knees and raised her young face, and
a prayer stole up out Of her careless heart,
the first that her abandoned life had
known.
80 God, or fate" she whispered, "that
rules the stars and men, grant this my
prayer love him! love him love
him! O God, If 1t be possible, grant that
l, for his dear sake, may take his power
and finish that which he has left undone.
Take thou my soul If thou wilt-God or
devil-and cast it out utterly, SO only that
this thing may be done. Kill mo, do what
thou wilt afterward. Grant only this.
She knelt there for q long time with
her face hidden, then rose quietly and
pressed her lips to his and went out to the
studio as one walks in u dream, with a
new, strange light on her face, and took
up the brushes and palette fearlessly and
set to work.
Day after day she painted without hest
tation, kissing his lips always before she
started telling no one, but keeping the
studio locked from all eyes.
She grew thin and weak ard i'll. All
the bright and buoyant young life Of her
seemed to be absorbed in her work. With
a dreaming wonder, that was in itself tho
greatest wonder Of all, she saw tho picture
grow under her hands until 1t was finished.
They had missed her couple Of days,
and seeking her found her lying peacefully
at the foot Of the easel. The Beauty was
better and convalescent, and knew them,
and inquired for her. At first they
thought she was asleep from exhaustion,
but on trying to rouse her they found that
she was dead. The old doctor said that it
was heart trouble, and she had died In her
sleep.
The Beauty never knew. In his delirium
he had joined SO often the real and the un-
real that he came to believe that he had
completed the picture himself At all
events, 1t made him famous. Flag