Ah! the river! His old friend and his old
enemy, speaking always with the same voice as he runs from year to year
bringing fortune or disappointment happiness or pain, upon the same
varying but unchanged surface of glancing currents and swirling eddies.
For many years he had listened to the passionless and soothing murmur
that sometimes was the song of hope, at times the song of triumph, of
encouragement; more often the whisper of consolation that spoke of better
days to come. For so many years! So many years! And now to the
accompaniment of that murmur he listened to the slow and painful beating
of his heart. He listened attentively, wondering at the regularity of
its beats. He began to count mechanically. One, two. Why count? At
the next beat it must stop. No heart could suffer so and beat so
steadily for long. Those regular strokes as of a muffled hammer that
rang in his ears must stop soon. Still beating unceasing and cruel. No
man can bear this; and is this the last, or will the next one be the
last?--How much longer? O God! how much longer? His hand weighed
heavier unconsciously on the girl's shoulder, and she spoke the last
words of her story crouching at his feet with tears of pain and shame and
anger.
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