The altar fire by A.C. Benson

I have been thinking all day long of my last walk with Alec, the day before he was taken ill. Maud had gone out with Maggie; and the little sturdy figure came to my room to ask if I was going out. I was finishing a book that I was reading for the evening's work; I had been out in the morning, and I had not intended to go out again, as it was cold and drizzling. I very nearly said that I could not go, and I had a shadow of vexation at being interrupted. But I looked up at him, as he stood by the door, and there was a tiny shadow of loneliness upon his face; and I thank God now that I put my book down at once, and consented cheerfully. He brightened up at this; he fetched my cap and stick, and we went off together. I am glad to think that I had him to myself that day. He was in a more confidential mood than usual.

Perhaps -- who knows? -- there was some shadow of death upon him, some instinct to clasp hands closer before the end. He asked me to tell him some stories of my schooldays, and what I used to do as a boy -- but he was full of alertness and life, breaking into my narratives to point out a nest that we had seen in the spring, and that now hung, wind-dried and ruinous, among the boughs. Coming back, he flagged a little, and did what he seldom did, put his arm in my own; how tenderly the touch of the little hand, the restless fingers on my arm thrilled me -- the hand that lies cold and folded and shrivelled in the dark ground! He was proud that evening of having had me all to himself, and said to Maggie that we had talked secrets, "such as MEN talk when there are no women to ask questions." But thinking that this had wounded Maggie a little, he went and put his arm round her, and I heard him say something about its being all nonsense, and that we had wished for her all the time.