The days passed; strength crept back into his body, consciousness to his
brain. The bandage was taken off once more, and he saw the nurse and
other faces. He did not look again for the Presence. He had come to
understand he could not see it with his eyes; but always it was there,
waiting, something sweet and wonderful. Waiting to show him what to do
when he was well.
The memorial services had been held for Stephen Marshall many days, the
university had been draped in black, with its flag at half-mast, the
proper time, and its mourning folded away, ere Paul Courtland was able
to return to his room and his classes.
They welcomed him back with touching eagerness. They tried to hush their
voices and temper their noisiness to suit an invalid. They told him all
their news, what games had been won, who had made Phi Beta Kappa, and
what had happened at the frat. meetings. But they spoke not at all of
Stephen!
Down the hall Stephen's door stood always open, and Courtland, walking
that way one day, found fresh flowers upon his desk and wreathed around
his mother's picture. A quaint little photograph of Stephen taken
several years back hung on one wall. It had been sent at the class's
request by Stephen's mother to honor her son's chosen college.
The room was set in order, Stephen's books were on the shelves, his few
college treasures tacked up about the walls; and conspicuous between the
windows hung framed the resolutions concerning Stephen the hero-martyr
of the class, telling briefly how he had died, and giving him this
tribute, "He was a man!"
Below the resolutions, on the little table covered with an old-fashioned
crocheted cotton table-cover, lay Stephen's Bible, worn, marked, soft
with use. His mother had wished it to remain. Only his clothes had been
sent back to her who had sent him forth to prepare for his life-work,
and received word in her distant home that his life-work had been
already swiftly accomplished.
Courtland entered the room and looked around.
There were no traces of the fray that had marred the place when last he
saw it. Everything was clean and fine and orderly. The simple saint-like
face of the plain farmer's-wife-mother looked down upon it all with
peace and resignation. This life was not all. There was another. Her
eyes said that. Paul Courtland stood a long time gazing into them.
Then he closed the door and knelt by the little table, laying his
forehead reverently upon the Bible.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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