“Jacqueline!”
The two cries rang through the room, then all was quiet again.
“You have come back!” were the next words Paula heard. “How could I ever have doubted that you would!”
“I have been driven back by awful suffering,” was the answer; and another silence fell. Suddenly Jacqueline’s voice was heard. “Love slew me, and now love has saved me!” exclaimed she. And there came no answer to that cry, and Paula felt the shadow of a great awe settle down upon her, and moving nearer to where the aged woman knelt by her darling’s bedside, she looked in her bended face and then in the one upturned on the pillow, and knew that of all the hearts that but an instant before had beat with earth’s deepest emotion in that quiet room, one alone throbbed on to thank God and take courage.
And the fire which had been kindled to welcome the prodigal back, burned on; and from the hollow depths of the great room below, came the sound of a clock as it struck the hour, seven!
XLVI.
THE MAN CUMMINS.
“Oh day and night, but this is wondrous strange.”—Henry V.
“Shut up in measureless content.”—Othello.