"Oh, I thought you might like to see her. I'm on my way there now," he
said.
"Oh, do you remember," she asked, "the first day you took me there?"
"Do I remember?" he repeated. "I remember a good many things."
"Don't tease--be serious! Do you remember, that was the first of all
our drives together, and this is----"
"Well, not quite the last, I hope!"
"No! But--the last--until there will be a difference!"
"It's a difference I welcome, sweet!" he declared; and at the look in
his eyes she put up her hands to ward him away.
"No, no! Not now!" she said, in one of the sudden shy reserves that he
adored, for all their tormenting him. "I want to tell you about my
letters."
He read them, smiling with her over each one; but there was no time for
comment then, for they were stopping before the Tobets' house, and
White Rosy was looking inquiringly around at them.
Ogilvie led the way into the cottage. It seemed strangely quiet. Joe
came from the inner room, grinned at them in a friendly way, and
Ogilvie motioned to Rosamund to go in.
The quiet, the presence of Joe at that time of day, something in the
doctor's manner, all made her pause; Ogilvie held the door open for
her, but he was looking at Joe as men look when they understand each
other.
"Oh! What is it?" Rosamund breathed, and he turned to her, still
smiling.
"Go in," he said. "It's the loveliest sight in God's world, isn't it,
Joe?"
The smile left Joe's face, but not his eyes. "It be," he agreed,
emphatically, and began very vigorously to rattle the stove.
Within the darkened room Grace lay; and although the little place was
decked with its gayest of quilt and curtain, although Grace's face
shone with a radiance as of heaven itself, Rosamund saw only the wee
brown head in the hollow of her arm.
She went slowly forward, awed in the presence of the newly awakened
soul in such a tiny form. Grace smiled up at her.
"Joe says he's that glad he favors me!" she whispered, and nestled her
cheek against the downy head.
Such simple words, and so momentous an event! Just humble pride that
the father of her child rejoiced in his son's likeness to his mother!
A cheek against a baby's forehead, an old agony forgotten! The
master-marvel of all creation sleeping upon the breast so lately wrung
in torture! Such innocence, such purity, blessing and cleansing the
house of all sin and sorrow, of shame and bitterness! God's breath in
the new life, His ever recurring purpose of Love redeeming!
Rosamund could find no fitting words before the miracle. The joyous
words of an ancient song echoed in her heart, "Mine eyes have seen Thy
Salvation!"
But she was far from ready for her own _Nunc Dimittis_. The future
drew her, life was welcoming her to its fulfillment. She kissed the
pale, smiling mother, went swiftly from the room, past the two men whom
she saw through a blur of tears, and out to the road where spring was
waiting.
There, presently, Ogilvie joined her. Her look deeply stirred him.
Her eyes were darker than he had ever seen them, darker than he thought
they could be--or was it, he wondered, that he lost the sense of their
color in sounding the promise that welled up from their depths? The
promise he read there was a reflection of the revelation of those
moments in Grace's room. So might Mary's eyes have looked when she
bowed before the angel. For a moment they looked silently at each
other; then, with a little sobbing indrawn breath, she withdrew her
gaze and he took his place beside her.
He urged White Rosy's reluctant feet toward a rough wood-road that led
up the mountain. For a while neither spoke. The air was full of
little fitful pauses and quickly blown breaths of fragrance. A white
petal fluttered from somewhere and caught, trembling, in her hair. A
bee passed so near their faces, in his eager quest for sweetness, that
they drew quickly back. Against the blue of the sky a hawk circled
slowly, with no visible motion of pinion, seeking in vain in the
unfolding life of earth for something dead to feast upon. The woods
were hushed, and from their moist recesses faint vapors rose,
wraithlike spirits of departing winter, and melted off in the warm
sweetness of the air.
After a while they came to an open space, the scar of some old fire,
from which they could look across the great plain below, back toward
the Summit and the blackened spot that had been Rosamund's cherished
home a few weeks before, and down upon the roof of the little house
that sheltered Grace and her baby. White Rosy stopped, looked down at
the faint green of the fields and whinnied; then she took up her
roadside feasting. "See that bluebird," Ogilvie presently said,
pointing. "See the blue flash of his wing! See--ah, there's his mate!"
They watched the flight of the bird until his mate had lured him out of
sight. Then Ogilvie turned to her. "Rosamund," he said, "I have
something to tell you--something to ask."