The same street, the same tenement house, but grown even uglier and
dingier with the passing of the years. In a small room on the second
floor, Jane sits beside the bed on which her mother tosses in the
delirium of fever. Her heart is slowly breaking as she listens to the
moaning, insistent cry which issues from those parched lips. All through
the days and nights of anxious watching, that cry has been ringing in
her ears, the call for "Richard, Richard, Richard."
That her mother is dying she knows full well, and how she longs for one
loving glance, for one word of affection, to carry with her in the
lonely years to come. But no look of recognition comes to the sightless
eyes and no word escapes the lips save that never ceasing cry of
"Richard, Richard, Richard." A white-capped nurse flits softly about,
but Jane pays no heed to her. The doctor enters and hold whispered
consultation with the nurse. Jane does not even glance at him. She is
tired of hearing him say the same old thing time after time: "While
there is life, there is hope." She knows there is no hope, though
everything possible has been done to save the precious life now ebbing
so swiftly. Thank God, they are no longer poor as when she was a child.
Her salary is a splendid one and she has been able to have the best
advice, the best care possible, for her dying mother. No, they are no
longer poor, but of what avail is money now? It cannot bring back the
days that are gone, the happy days before Richard went away. And they
were happy, then, so happy.
After her father's death, which had occurred while she was still a mere
child, she and mother had devoted themselves to the task of caring for
little Richard. They toiled; they starved, they saved--all for Richard.
They prayed and planned and hoped--for Richard. He must go to school, he
must go to college, he must become a power in the world. For themselves,
poor food, poor clothes, the old tenement were good enough, for every
cent they saved meant so much the more for Richard when he should have
come to man's estate. And Richard? Oh! he had been well content to take
all they offered him. He went to school, he went to college; only,
somehow, the reports of his doings there were anything but encouraging.
They seemed to be merely a series of pranks and mischief, but the
devoted mother was very ready to make allowances. The boy was young, he
would grow steadier as he grew older. They must have patience with him
for a few years yet. At times Jane doubted the wisdom of their course,
and when the demands, not only upon their patience but upon their purse,
became greater and greater, Jane had counseled removing him from college
and setting him to work. Not so the mother. Her cry was ever: "Patience,
patience, and all will yet be well." So they bore with him a while
longer to their never ceasing sorrow.
His escapades grew wilder, the reprimands of the faculty more severe. At
last came the final prank, which had resulted in his disgrace and
expulsion. Even then, she and mother was ready to forgive and had
written him to come home. No answer from Richard had ever been received.
Instead, came the news that the boy had disappeared, run away; the last
seen of him was boarding a train for the West. All efforts at tracing
him had proved futile, and to this day they knew not where he was.
Mother had never smiled again but had drooped and faded day by day.
Time and again Jane had urged moving to more congenial surroundings, to
a flat or cottage in the suburbs, to fresh air and sunshine. But no,
mother would not have it so; Richard might come back some day and how
could he find them if they moved away from the old home in the tenement
house?
Even now, when she is dying, her last thought is not for the girl beside
her, the girl who has toiled so patiently, watched so faithfully,
sacrificed all so generously, for mother and for Richard. Even in
delirium, her thoughts are only for the absent one; her words, that
insistent, heartrending cry for "Richard, Richard, Richard." Jane bows
her head in anguish but whispers low: "Thy will be done."