An hour later, finding Lettice still asleep, her resolution remained the same. She had the child carried upstairs and put to bed in Prue's room: and Lettice never opened her eyes. "It will not do. I must risk delay," Bertha said.
Six o'clock in the morning. The long night was over at last: a night long both to the invalid and to her nurse. Bertha would have no help. She knew what to do, and Prue was forbidden to come before a certain hour, unless summoned.
If Cecilia Anderson lived through the night, hope would revive; hope, at least, of a temporary rally. Again and again this "if" seemed to hang on the merest spider-line. Again and again Bertha actually held in her hand the bell-rope, one pull of which would summon Wallace, to be sent to Prue, with word that Lettice must come. He did not know how the sick woman cried out for Lettice, in her half-wandering state. He had heard an occasional call, as he passed near the room, but no words were to be distinguished. Bertha was resolved that Miss Anderson should not pass away without a sight of the child; but also she was resolved not to call Lettice sooner than might be essential.
"Would you like to see a clergyman?" she had asked on the previous evening: and an abrupt negative was returned. Bertha could not force the matter. All she could do through the long night-hours, was to watch for opportunities to whisper sometimes a short prayer, to murmur occasionally a few words from the Bible, or the verse of a hymn. Bertha was a good and earnest girl. It might be quite true, as Prue had said, that she was naturally eager and restless, naturally fond of work and fond of change; but also she was a girl of right principle and of deep religious feeling, a "servant of Jesus Christ" in heart.
Her efforts met with small response, however. If Cecilia heard, she did not seem to heed, with one exception. Bertha, standing by her side, said slowly—
"'Let the unrighteous man forsake his thoughts, and let him return unto the Lord, and He will have mercy upon him: and to our God, for He will abundantly pardon.'"
"What?" cried Cecilia, with a startling suddenness.
"'He will abundantly pardon!'" reverently repeated Bertha.
"Will He?"
"If we turn to Him, and forsake our unrighteous thoughts."