CONCLUSION

Brother Copas walked homeward along the river-path, his gaunt hands gathering his Beauchamp robe behind him for convenience of stride. Ahead of him and around him the swallows circleted over the water-meads or swooped their breasts close to the current of Mere. Beside him strode his shadow, and lengthened as the sun westered in a haze of potable gold. In the haze swam evening odours of mints, grasses, herbs of grace and virtue named in old pharmacopœias as most medicinal for man, now forgotten, if not nameless.

The sunset breathed benediction. To many who walked homeward that evening it seemed in that benediction to enwrap the centuries of history they had so feverishly been celebrating, and to fold them softly away as a garment. But Brother Copas heeded it not. He was eager to reach St. Hospital and carry report to his old friend.

"Upon my word, it was an entire success.… I have criticised the Bambergers enough to have earned a right to admit it. In the end a sort of sacred fury took hold of the whole crowd, and in the midst of it we held her up—Corona—on a shield—"

Brother Bonaday lay panting. He had struggled through an attack sharper than any previous one—so much sharper that he knew the end to be not far distant, and only asked for the next to be swift.

"—And she was just splendid," said Brother Copas. "She had that unconscious way of stepping out of the past, with a crown on her head. My God, old friend, if I had that child for a daughter—"

Brother Bonaday lay and panted, not seeming to hear, still with his eyes upturned to the ceiling of his narrow cell. They scanned it as if feebly groping a passage through.

"I ought to have told you," he muttered.—"More than once I meant— tried—to tell you."

"Hey?"

Brother Copas bent lower.

"She—Corona—never was my child.… Give me your hand.… No, no; it's the truth, now. Her mother ran away from me… and she, Corona, was born… a year after… in America… Coronation year. The man—her father—died when she was six months old, and the woman… knowing that I was always weak—"

He panted, very feebly. Brother Copas, still holding his hand, leaned forward.

"Then she died, too.… What does it matter? Her message.… 'Bluff,' you would call it.… But she knew me. She was always decided in her dealings… to the end. I want to sleep now.… That's a good man!"

Brother Copas, seeking complete solitude, found it in the dusk of the garden beyond the Ambulatory. There, repelling the benediction of sunset that still lingered in the west, he lifted his face to the planet Jupiter, already establishing its light in a clear space of sky.

"Lord!" he ingeminated, "forgive me who counted myself the ironëist of St. Hospital!"