Perhaps
it was well for her. Surgical practice was rough, and wounds made by
fire-arms were thought to have imbibed a poison that made treatment
be supposed efficacious in proportion to the pain inflicted. When
Ebbo was recalled by the torture to see no white reflection of his
own face on the pillow beside him, and to feel in vain for the grasp
of the cold damp hand, a delirious frenzy seized him, and his
struggles were frustrating the doctor's attempts, when a low soft
sweet song stole through the open door.
"Friedel!" he murmured, and held his breath to listen. All through
the declining day did the gentle sound continue; now of grand chants
or hymns caught from the cathedral choir, now of songs of chivalry or
saintly legend so often sung over the evening fire; the one flowing
into the other in the wandering of failing powers, but never failing
in the tender sweetness that had distinguished Friedel through life.
And, whenever that voice was heard, let them do to him what they
would, Ebbo was still absorbed in intense listening so as not to lose
a note, and lulled almost out of sense of suffering by that swan-like
music.
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