During the long, ghostly watches of that winter night, she recalled her past life, gilded by the old man's love, and could remember no happiness with which he was not intimately connected, and no sorrow that his hand had not soothed and lightened. The future was now a blank, crossed by no projected paths, lit with no ray of hope; and at daylight, when the cold, pale morning showed the stony face of the corpse at her side, her unnatural composure broke up in a storm of passionate woe, and she sprang to her feet, almost frantic with the sense of her loss: "All alone! nobody to love me; nothing to look forward to! Oh. grandpa! did you hear me praying for you yesterday? Dear Grandy--my own dear Grandy! I did pray for you while you were dying--here alone! Oh, my God! what have I done, that you should take him away from me? Was not I on my knees when he died? Oh! what will become of me now? Nobody to care for Edna now! Oh, grandpa! grandpa! beg Jesus to ask God to take me too!" And throwing up her clasped hands, she sank back insensible on the shrouded form of the dead.
"When some beloved voice that was to you Both sound and sweetness, faileth suddenly, And silence against which you dare not cry, Aches round you like a strong disease and new-- What hope? what help? what music will undo That silence to your senses? Not friendship's sigh, Not reason's subtle count. Nay, none of these! Speak Thou, availing Christ! and fill this pause."