The nurse met him,
crying, and said, "A change"--mild but fatal words that from a nurse's
lips end hope.
He came to the bedside just in time to see the breath hovering on his
child's lips, and then move them as the summer air stirs a leaf.
Soon all was still, and the rich man's child was clay.
The unhappy father burst into a passion of grief, short but violent. Then
he ordered the nurse to watch there, and let no one enter the room; then
he staggered back to his office, and flung himself down at his table and
buried his head. To do him justice, he was all parental grief at first,
for his child was his idol.
The arms were stretched out across the table; the head rested on it; the
man was utterly crushed.
Whilst he was so, the little office door opened softly, and a pale, worn,
haggard face looked in. It was the father of the poor man's child in
mortal danger from privation and hereditary consumption. That haggard
face was come to ask the favor of employment, and bread for his girl,
from the rich man whose child was clay.
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