Leopold gazed at him and said no more.






CHAPTER XVIII.

THE MEADOW.





As the disease advanced, his desire for fresh air and freedom grew
to a great longing. One hot day, whose ardours, too strong for the
leaves whose springs had begun to dry up, were burning them "yellow
and black and pale and hectic red," the fancy seized him to get out
of the garden with its clipt box-trees and cypresses, into the
meadow beyond. There a red cow was switching her tail as she
gathered her milk from the world, and looking as if all were well.
He liked the look of the cow, and the open meadow, and wanted to
share it with her, he said. Helen, with the anxiety of a careful
nurse, feared it might hurt him.

"What DOES it matter?" he returned. "Is life so sweet that every
moment more of it is a precious boon? After I'm gone a few days, you
won't know a week from an hour of me. What a weight it will be off
you! I envy you all the relief of it. It will be to you just what it