Mother sat on a low chair by the bed; her hand was in father's, and her head rested on her hand. There was no light, only just the grayness of the twilight. One might have thought it was a young girl's figure that crouched there so tenderly. All through the years of my childhood I had very rarely seen any attitude of affection between my parents; I scarcely ever remember father kissing mother in our presence, although his unfailing chivalry towards her, and the quiet, matter-of-course way in which her opinion was reverenced, had grown to be an understood thing among us. I felt now that I had intruded on a sacred privacy.
Mother turned as I came in, and drew her hand very gently away from father's; he was dozing. She rose and walked away towards the window.
"Shall I bring the lamp, mother?" asked I.
I felt that there were tears in her voice as she answered. It was the first time I had been aware of this in all the time that father had been ill, she had been so very quiet and brave. I went up to her where she stood in the dim light of the window-seat, with her back towards me, and after a moment I kissed her reverently, as I never remember to have done before, save that once when she said that things would have been different on the farm if our little brother had lived. Her tears welled over, but she did not speak, only when I said, "He is better to-night, mother, don't you think so?" she nodded her head, and turned and went out of the room.
That night the wave we had been watching so long broke over our heads.
Mother had sat up the night before, and had gone to rest; Joyce held watch till midnight, and then I took her place. The hours wore away wearily through the darkness. Father was very restless, moaning often, and throwing his arms from side to side.
Once he had held his hand a long while on my head in the old, affectionate way, and had looked with mute, passionate entreaty into my eyes. What did he want to know? If I guessed, I did not satisfy the craving. I only murmured vague words here and there, smoothed his pillow and his brow, putting water to his dry lips, ministering to a physical thirst, and ignoring the bitterer thirst of the mind. I was a coward.
At last he fell into a restless doze. I left the bedside and went to the window. The dawn was breaking; behind a rampart of purple clouds a pale streak of orange light girdled the marsh around; sea there was none, or rather it was all sea—silent waves of desolate land, silent waves of distant water, and over all a sullen surf of mist that hid the truth; out of the surf rose the far-off town, like some dark rock amid the waters, statelier than ever above the ghostly bands of vapor that crossed its base, and made the crown of its square belfry loom like some fortress on a towering Alpine height. Purple was the town, and purple the cloud battlements, but overhead the sky was clear, where one patient yellow star waited the coming of day.
At the foot of the cliff the water was up in the tidal river; it lay blue and cold amid the dank, white mist. I remembered the day, six months ago, when I had stood and watched it, just as blue and cold against the white winter snow; I had thought it looked colder than the snow in its iron depths; I had thought it looked like death. Yes, how I remembered it! It was the first time I had ever thought of death.
I went back to the bed. I fancied father had moved; but he lay there quite still, with his face upturned, and a strange blue grayness on it. I stood over him a long time, till my hands were so cold with fear that I could scarcely feel if his had still the warmth of life. I thought I would call mother, but the breath still came faintly from his lips; so I waited a while, creeping softly back to the window, whence I could see the living world.