"She has done nothing wrong," Mrs. Vincent answered; "nothing could make
me believe that."
"She has disgraced us with her play actors and her forwardness. Would
you have an unbeliever beside your sick-bed?"
"But I want her," Mrs. Vincent said. "I want her and her father," she
moaned. "I can't die without seeing them again."
"You are making too much of the illness," Hannah answered, anxiously.
"People have more of it before they die."
"Tell Towsey to send for Margaret," Mrs. Vincent said, as if her mind
were detaching itself from Hannah's argument.
"She shall not cross the doorstep," Hannah said; "and, if you were
dying, it would be for your salvation's sake that I would still say it;
for one must have fear of God as well as love of God. Let us go on with
the reading, mother."
"I can't listen; I want Margaret and her father. There is the sea
between him and me, but you can send for Margaret."
"You are tired and had better sleep a little," Hannah said for answer,
and, for all her firmness, her voice was kind and even gentle, as though
she were striving to save a soul at bitter cost to her own heart. No
answer came to her last words, and five minutes went by; they seemed
like hours to Margaret; then Hannah spoke again, and her voice was
different--there was something like fear in it.
"Mother," she asked, "mother, why do you look round so; do you see
anything?"
"I'm looking for Margaret," the faint voice said.
"You'd better try to sleep; you'll be stronger if you sleep a little."
But for answer there was only a little moaning whisper that Margaret's
heart told her was her own name, and in agony she rocked to and fro and
clung to her mother's skirt hung against the wall, and kissed it, and
the tears came into her eyes and scalded them.
"I will go and get you a cup of arrow-root," she heard Hannah say; "it
is past midnight, and time that you had nourishment." She pushed back
the chair on which she had been sitting and came out of the room and,
passing the door of the cupboard in which her sister was hiding, went
down-stairs. Then Margaret slipped softly into her mother's room and
knelt by the bedside.
"Mother!--mother!" she whispered, and put her face down on the thin
hands and covered them with kisses. "Mother, darling, I am here--beside
you."
A look of fright and joy came into Mrs. Vincent's dulling eyes.
"Margaret?" she gasped. "Thank God, I've seen you! Hannah won't believe
that I am dying. Did Towsey--"
"Yes, darling, yes," Margaret whispered; "and I love you so--I love you
so. Get well, darling; father is coming back--he is coming back
immediately; get well for him," she whispered between the kisses she
rained on the thin face and the hands that had a strange chill on them.
"I shall never see him," Mrs. Vincent said; "but tell him that I thought
of him and of you all the time."
"Oh, mother--mother--"
"Bless you, dear, bless you," Mrs. Vincent said. A happy smile came for
a moment over her face, though fear quenched it. "If Hannah finds you
she will drive you out. You must go--I couldn't bear it, dear. I entreat
you to go."
"I will hide, darling; Towsey will manage everything," Margaret said.
"Hannah is very hard," the dying woman whispered, anxiously; "but she
doesn't mean it--and she's been very good to me--it's only because she's
strict. Tell your father he will come to me, and I'll be waiting. Go,
dear--go--I couldn't have died without seeing you." With a last effort
Mrs. Vincent kissed her again, but her lips would hardly move, though a
cry of fear came through them, for Hannah had quickly crossed the hall
below and begun to ascend the stairs; and Margaret knew that if she
left the room she would meet her on the threshold. Mrs. Vincent's eyes
turned in terror towards the door and remained fixed; a strange
expression came to them, as if she saw many waiting and was satisfied,
knowing why they had come.
In a moment Margaret was on the other side of the bed and had hidden
behind the screen that was partly round the top and down one side of it.
She could not stand for trembling; she crouched down on her knees and
held her breath.
"Mother, I thought I heard you cry," Hannah said as she entered, but
there came no sound for answer. "Mother," she said again, and waited;
but all was still. Then Hannah went to the door and called: "Towsey,
Towsey, come here!" and Towsey, startled by her tone, came running in
haste, and Margaret knew that they were standing together at the
bedside. The moments went by with a strange stillness, dragging and
terrible, as though an unseen host held on to them. She heard Towsey
whisper, "She is going"; she heard her mother's quick breathing, she
heard her try to speak, but the words were only half articulated, and
still she did not dare to move.
Hannah said: "Mother, mother, Christ will save you; pray to Him," and
her mother whispered once more:
"Tell father and Margaret--and there will be James, too." Then the
breathing grew quicker, and the death-rattle came in her throat, and
Margaret put her hands to her own throat and covered her mouth, and
crouched lower and lower towards the floor, so that she might not cry
out in her agony. Then all was still, and she knew that her mother had
died.
"She is better off; God be merciful to her, a sinner," Hannah said, and
sat down in the arm-chair at the bedside. It seemed to Margaret as if
hours went by while she cowered and rocked in her hiding-place, hoping
that presently the dead would be left alone for a little, and that then
she might creep out and see her mother's face once more.
But this was not to be, for when Hannah rose she called down the
staircase: "Towsey, you can come; we must make her ready." Then she came
back into the room, and it seemed as if some spirit had whispered to
her, for she walked round the bed and moved the screen behind which
Margaret was hidden. She started back almost in horror when she saw the
crouching figure.
"Margaret! is it you that have dared?"
Margaret stood up and faced her, and even Hannah saw that the young face
was drawn with misery, and that her lips trembled.
"It is you that dared not to send for me," she said, in an agonized
voice.
Hannah turned to the bed and drew the sheet over their mother's face.
"I wrote to you this afternoon, telling you that she was ill, though you
had no right to be here." So the sisters had both written, and neither
letter had reached its destination in time.
"But she was my mother, and called for me," Margaret answered. "It was
my right as well as yours to be by her."
"You gave up your right," Hannah said, doggedly, "and the place is
mine." But she took care not to look at Margaret, and her hands were
twitching.
Then Towsey came forward. "For shame, Hannah!" she said; "this is your
mother's child you're speaking to, and in the presence of the dead. You
can't mean that she's not to stay here."
"Oh, you can't mean that I am not to stay while she is here?" Margaret
said, passionately, looking towards the bed. "I think that the agony I
have borne this last hour will set me free of hell, if it is true. You
can think, if you like, that God has sent it me for punishment, but we
needn't speak of these things," she pleaded; "I only want to stay in
peace till she has gone forever."
"And it's peace that God gives," said Towsey, "to them that have
suffered."
"You can stay," Hannah said. "It's true that she was the mother of us
both, and I'd rather you had been beside her when she died than hidden
there." She turned her head away quickly. "It's that I can't forgive,"
she added, with a break in her voice.
"Hannah," said Margaret, and went a step forward, for Hannah's voice
even more than her words overcame her--"Hannah, I was afraid you
wouldn't let me in; you said I shouldn't enter the door."
"She wasn't dying then," said Hannah, with grim sadness, "and I didn't
think it would be yet; besides, one often says things--I even said them
to her; but I wouldn't have had this happen for all I could see."
Margaret put her hand on Hannah's arm, but Hannah stood quite rigid and
stern, with her face turned towards the still form that was hidden from
them.