Part 2 — FILED—FOR REFERENCE!

He had let love and life slip past him, and now he lay a-dying, and love and life lay behind him for evermore.

Lying in his narrow bed, in the room which in all his days of grinding work, he had never troubled to make homelike or comfortable, his thoughts wandered back over the years with wearisome persistency. He had been a successful man. The name of John Saunders was known far and wide as the name of the shrewdest solicitor of his day; hard-headed, keen, practical—feared by friend and enemy alike; loved, men said, by none.

They called him "old Dryasdust" in his own office; they declared that his heart had withered away in the atmosphere of work and in the squirrel round of business in which he had lived. Some, indeed, went so far as to say that Nature had never provided him with a heart at all.

And now he lay dying—a lonely man, in his lonely chambers, looking wearily back across his life.

His grey head moved uneasily upon the pillows, arranged by his valet into clumsy discomfort; his eyes glanced restlessly round the room, turning almost impatiently from its severe dreariness, towards the window, through which he could just see a glimpse of a tree-top in the square garden.

He was tired, most dreadfully tired. It was a weariness to think, yet the busy brain, that in all his busy life had never learnt to rest, refused now to be stilled. Thick and fast there crowded before his mind memories of long forgotten cases, recollections of clients long since dead, worrying details of business, that had long ago been settled and done with.

His head moved again impatiently. He turned to look for the lemonade which should have been on the table by his bedside. An angry exclamation broke from him. The table with the lemonade was placed exactly where he could not reach it; what was the use of all his years of labour, of all the wealth he had acquired, if now he could not even obtain the common necessaries of life?

The electric bell beside the bed was close to his hand. He rang it furiously, and his valet arrived, panting and breathless.

"Why can't you put the things within my reach?" the old man asked irritably. "Am I to die of thirst, because you are careless?"

The servant moved the table nearer to his master, handed him the tumbler, and, in his own mind, considered the pros and cons of giving warning on the spot. A dim hope of a possible legacy gave the cons the victory, but the man did not remain in the sick-room a moment longer than was absolutely necessary. As he confided to the wife of the porter, in the basement, "Old Saunders was getting that unbearable in his illness, it was hard to stand him."

The sick man lay quiet after the servant had left him, his eyes fixed upon the waving green of the tree-tops in the square. A faint curiosity as to what tree it was that he could see, ran through his mind. Was it an elm, he wondered?

There had been elms in the meadow behind the old Rectory garden where he had played as a boy—great elms in which the rooks had built year after year. It was a long, long time since he had heard the soft cawing of the rooks. He had a faint remembrance of picking daisies and buttercups in those fields under the elms, whilst the rooks cawed soothingly overhead.

A little smile flickered across his hard old face. Perhaps the tree in the square was not an elm after all. It might be a lime. There had been limes in another garden, and the bees had hummed amongst their blossoms on that summer's day when—when—— Why, how many years ago was it? Forty? Fifty? Could it be forty years? He had been a young fellow then, at the beginning of his career, and life had been less crammed with work and business.

He moved restlessly.

Yes! He had been able then to notice the sweetness of a girl's eyes, to heed the music of a girl's voice.

Pshaw! It was utter folly to let his thoughts wander to so remote a past. What was the good of remembrance?

And yet—— If he had not been so wrapped up in his work, to the exclusion of everything human and loveable, he might now have had other hands than those of Richard his valet to tend him. A woman would have made his room look less like a prison cell. A woman would not have put his things just out of his reach. She would not have been in such a hurry to leave him to himself!

Again he stirred irritably. He hated the sight of those rustling leaves now, even though they held some strange fascination for him; but they reminded him too strongly of youth, and love, and happiness. And he had wilfully put them all away from him with his own hands. Ah! fool and blind that he had been! And now—now, he was old and dying—and alone!

The door opened softly. Richard stepped quietly in, and seeing that his master's eyes were shut, laid a note upon the table, and as quietly departed again.

"Bother the man!" old John Saunders muttered. "He seems afraid to stay with me. A letter for me? Strange—very strange." And he stretched out his hand and took up the envelope.

A faint sense of something familiar stirred within him as he glanced at the handwriting—a something which he could not quite recall out of the past. He opened the envelope and drew out the letter almost rapidly. It was very short.

"Dear John,—I wonder if I may still call you that, after all the years that have gone by? I would not have troubled you with a letter now, but that I heard, only to-day, that you are ill and alone. And I thought I must write to you for auld lang syne, and ask you whether you would let me come and see you. We are both old people now, John; but let me come to see you, for old sake's sake.

"Yours, as ever, "Joan Bentley.

"P.S.—Did you never get the letter I wrote you more than thirty years ago?"

The letter dropped from his hands. The keen grey eyes grew dim.

It was strange that this should have come just when the remembrance had returned to him of the lime-trees in her father's garden, of the bees that had hummed among them forty years ago.

His dreary room faded from his sight. It was as if the walls melted into space, and he could feel the warm air of July blowing round him, smell the fragrance of the lime-flowers, step upon the softness of the smooth turf beneath his feet.

He was young again! A man with his life before him, and love within his grasp.

He could see the tall hollyhocks by the gate—the hollyhocks she loved. There were tall white lilies there as well. The sweetness of them filled the air, mingling with the scent of roses that clambered up the old red wall. The wood-pigeons cooed gently in the copse across the road, and the rooks cawed as they swung upon the boughs of the lime-trees.

And Joan's clear eyes looked into his; Joan's voice was in his ear.

"Oh, John, will it be long?" he heard her say. And his own voice, young and strong, replied:

"No, no, my dear—not long. How could I let it be long, when I shall be working for you? When I have made enough money I shall come and claim you. Your father is quite right not to allow a formal engagement till then. But we understand each other, Joan—my Joan!"

Strange! How the years had rolled away, and the world seemed full again, as it had seemed then, of Joan—Joan, and only Joan!

The vision slowly faded; the walls of the dull room returned to their places, the noise of the irritating clock on the mantelpiece replaced the soft voices of the wood-pigeons; he was an old man again, an old man who was alone—and dying!

But Joan had not forgotten. Joan's letter lay upon his bed. She had remembered for forty years; whilst he had forgotten everything, except the work to which he was a slave.

He picked up the letter once more and read the postscript first—

"Did you never get the letter I wrote you more than thirty years ago?"

Had he received it? What then had happened to it? A puzzled frown puckered his brow, as he struggled to recall the long past incident.

"I remember now," he exclaimed suddenly and aloud—"I remember! She wrote to me when I was in the midst of a press of work! Her letter was filed for reference—my Joan's letter filed for reference!"

His bell pealed through the house, and when Richard appeared, he found his master partially raised in bed, excited and breathless.

"Send to the office at once," he said; "tell them to send me up the files of the year —— immediately! And who brought this letter?"

"A lady called with it, sir. She said she would return for the answer in about an hour."

"Did she leave her name?"

"Yes, sir—Miss Joan Bentley, she wished me to say."

"When she comes back, bring her up to me"—and the old man sank exhausted on his pillows, his eyes closed, but a faint smile upon his lips.

It was less than an hour later when a little tap on the door aroused him.

"Come in," he said, not opening his eyes, till he heard the soft rustle of a dress beside his bed. Then he looked up, but it was the woman who spoke first.

"Why, John," she said brokenly—"why, John!" And all at once the shyness that had assailed her as she climbed the stairs slipped from her; the gulf of years that had seemed impassable became as nothing, and she dropped on her knees by the bed, looking into the tired old face upon the pillow, with wistful yearning eyes.

He put out his hand almost timidly, and laid it upon hers.

"How sweet the limes smelt, dear," he whispered, "and the bees hummed all the time among the flowers."

She thought for a moment that he was wandering, but he went on quietly.

"It was your letter that brought it all back. You have been faithful—all these years—and I—was a fool!"

Her clasp on his hand tightened.

"Did you forget," she asked—"did you forget? Was there someone else?"

The smile flickered out again upon his face.

"No, no, my dear, there was no someone else. There was nothing but my work—it wrapped me round, it has made me a successful man—and it—has spoilt my life! They call me Dryasdust, you know," his weak voice went on. "Somebody told me once that I had no heart."

"Ah, but it wasn't true," she said.

"Wasn't it? I don't know; I was a fool, and blind—I—but now it is too late, my Joan."

The little caressing words came strangely from the thin lips, but the hard, old face had softened in some unaccountable fashion.

"Is it ever too late for love?" she asked, and her hand touched gently the thin grey hair upon his temples.

"I have wasted my life, and yours," he answered drearily. "We might have been together all these years—all the long, long years—with our children round us—and now—it is nearly over. I am old, and dying, and you——"

"I am old too, my dear; perhaps it will not be long before—before——" her voice faltered and broke.

"Are you old?" he said; "your eyes are just what I remember, and your voice—it seems to me you are just the same as when I said good-bye to you under the lime-trees."

"Did you never get my other letter, John?" she said, after a moment or two. "I sent it to you ten years after you left me, because—because the silence was unbearable. Did you get it?"

"Yes, I got it; and I was busy—very, very busy. It brought me the scent of the garden, and the memory of you; and then—then I set it aside for a more convenient season, and it—ah, Joan!—it was filed for reference. Forgive me—Joan!"

Her caressing hand stroked his hair more tenderly, though her eyes filled with tears.

"We shall find it here," he said a little later, when Richard had deposited a great pile of letters beside him. "I was always methodical in my work—the letter will be here. Will you look for it?" His voice was so much weaker, that she looked at him with startled eyes, and the valet, returning, held a glass of cordial to his lips.

The two were alone again after that. Amongst the pile of old and faded letters the woman had found her own—the tiny girlish scrap, written impetuously, in a girl's impatient misery of long ago.

"Send me just one word," it ran—"only one word, to tell me that you have not forgotten."

A little bitterness surged up within her as she read again the scrap of faded writing, the old agony out of the past stirred once more at her heart.

"If I might make a daisy-chain for you, Joan—my Joan! How the rooks caw to-night! Do you hear them, dear?" The weak voice spoke dreamily; the bitterness in her heart died away. She laid her face softly against the tired face on the pillow.

"My poor boy," she whispered—"my poor boy!"

"And the limes—are so sweet," he rambled on. "I think—it is—the bees—that hum so loudly in my ears. Give me a rose, sweetheart. It—is getting dark—so dark for you—out here in the garden. You must go in. The wood-pigeons are quiet now, only how white the lilies shine—against the darkness; and the bees—the bees are humming still, and the—limes—are—so sweet."

For a moment the tired voice stopped, then began again:

"Never a someone else, my Joan, only you. And the years slipped, and I forgot how fast they went; we will have hollyhocks—in our own garden, dear."

The doctor, summoned by Richard, had entered the room, but he shook his head sadly, and moved towards the door.

"There is nothing to be done," he whispered to the servant, "we had better leave them alone. There is nothing we can do."

The room was very still, save only for the laboured breathing of the dying man. The woman's hand still softly stroked his hair; he lay so quietly that she thought he had passed out of consciousness into that strange borderland which is Death's ante-chamber.

The setting sunlight streamed into the room and across his face; the twittering of the birds in the square, the soft rustling of the wind in the tree-tops, were borne in at the half-open window.

Suddenly the dying man opened his eyes in full consciousness.

"I knew you would not leave me," he whispered. "I—said—a woman would stay—with me, it was—you I meant. I—have wasted my life—God forgive me! You have forgiven, my dear—a faithful woman—has forgiven—I think—God—will forgive—too—I—am taking"—his voice almost failed—"my wasted life—with me—to be—to be"—a little whimsical smile stole over his face—"to be—filed—for—reference."

L. G. Moberly.