Volume Four—Chapter Seven.
“To the Better Way.”
When Mrs Hallam came to herself, she was in bed, where she had lain, talking incoherently at times, during the greater part of a week.
It was evening, and the sun was shining in at the open window, lighting up Julia’s dark hair as she sat with her face in the shadow, careworn and evidently suffering deeply.
Mrs Hallam lay for some time feeling restful and calm. The fevered dream was at an end, and she had slept long, to wake now with that pleasurable sensation upon her that is given to the sick when an attack is at an end, and nature is tenderly repairing the damages of the assault. She was lying there; Julia, her beloved child, was by her side. A veil was between her and the past, and there was nothing but the peaceful sensation of rest.
Then, as her eyes wandered slowly about the room and rested at last upon her child, her mind began to work; the mother’s quick instinct awoke, and she read trouble in Julia’s face. The memories that were slumbering came back, and she tried to rise in her bed but sank back.
“Mother!”
“My child! Tell me quickly: have I been ill?”
“Yes; very, very ill. But you are better now, dear mother. I am so lonely! Ah! at last, at last!”
Worn out and weak with constant watching, Julia threw herself sobbing by the bedside, but only to hurriedly dry her eyes and try to be calm.
She succeeded, and answered the questions that came fast; and as she replied, Mrs Hallam trembled, for she could see that Julia was keeping something back.
“Have I been delirious?” she said at last.
“Yes, dear; but last night you slept so peacefully, and all through to-day. There, let me call Thisbe.”
“No, not yet,” said Mrs Hallam, clinging to her child’s arm, as a great anxiety was longing to be satisfied. “Tell me, Julia, did I talk—talk of anything while I was like that?”
Julia nodded quickly, and the despairing look deepened in her eyes.
“Not—not of your father, my child?” panted the suffering woman.
“Yes, mother, dear mother,” sobbed Julia, with a passionate cry that she could not withhold, and she buried her face in the sick woman’s breast.
The sun sank lower, and Julia’s low sobs grew more rare, but she did not rise from her knees—she did not lift her tear-stained face, while clasped about her neck, and her fingers joined above the glossy head, as if in prayer, Mrs Hallam’s hands, thin and transparent from her illness, seemed bathed in the orange glow of the sweet, calm eve.
All was still and restful on the hill-slope above the beautiful Paramatta River, and from the window there was a scene of peace that seemed to hinder the possibility of trouble existing on this earth.
“Julia,” said Mrs Hallam at length; “have you thought of all this—since—since I have been lying here?”
“Yes, dear, till I could think no more.”
“It has come at last,” said Mrs Hallam, as she lay with closed eyes.
“It has come, dear?” said Julia, starting up, and gazing at her mother with dilating eyes.
“Yes, my child, our path. I could not see it before in the wild confusion of my thoughts, but I know our duty now. You will help me, dear?”
“Help you, mother? Oh, yes. What shall I do?”
Mrs Hallam did not answer for a few minutes, and then said softly:
“You know all, you say. It has come to you with as great a shock as to me; but I can see our duty now. Julia, he must love us dearly; we are his wife and child, and we must lead him back to the better way.”