"But for the last sixteen hours the trance was like death. Then the doctor said, 'If the pulse does not sink and if she wakes naturally, she may rally.' This happened. At eight the next morning, my darling gently awoke and was given back into life. This was Thursday, and there were three days' respite. But yesterday she was evidently failing again, and this morning, while Dr. Taylor was in the room, the trance came on again. For ten minutes her pulse ceased to beat altogether.... Since then she has lain as before—scarcely here, yet not gone—quite happy—between heaven and earth.
"I believe now that if my darling is taken I can give thanks for the exceeding blessedness of this end.
"Meantime it is again a silent watching, and, as I watch, the solemn music of the hymns that my darling loves comes back to me, and I repeat them to myself. Now these verses are in my mind:—
'Have we not caught the smiling
On some beloved face,
As if a heavenly sound were wiling
The soul from our earthly place?—
The distant sound and sweet
Of the Master's coming feet.
We may clasp the loved one faster,
And plead for a little while,
But who can resist the Master?
And we read by that brightening smile
That the tread we may not fear
Is drawing surely near.'
And then, in the long watches of the night, all the golden past comes back to me—how as a little child I played round my darling in Lime Wood—how the flowers were our friends and companions—how we lived in and for one another in the bright Lime garden: of her patient endurance of much injustice—of her sweet forgiveness of all injuries—of her loving gratitude for all blessings—of her ever sure upward-seeking of the will and glory of God: and my eye wanders to the beloved face, lined and worn but glowing with the glory of another world, and while giving thanks for thirty years of past blessing, shall I not also give thanks that thus—not through the dark valley, but through the sunshine of God—my mother is entering upon her rest?
"God will give me strength: I feel quite calm. I can think only how to soothe, how to cheer, how to do everything for her."
"Feb. 26.—It is still the same; we are still watching. In the hundred and twelfth hour of her second trance, during which she had taken no nourishment whatever, my mother spoke again, but it was only for a time. You will imagine what the long watchings of this death-like slumber have been, what the strange visions of the past which have risen to my mind in the long, silent nights, as, with locked doors (for the French would insist that all was over), I have hovered over the pillow on which she lies as if bound by enchantment. Now comes before me the death-bed scene of S. Vincent de Paul, when, to the watchers lamenting together over his perpetual stupor, his voice suddenly said, 'It is but the brother that goes before the sister.' Then, as the shadows lighten into dawn, Norman Macleod's story of how he was watching by the death-bed of his beloved one in an old German city, and grief was sinking into despair, when, loud and solemn, at three in the morning, echoed forth the voice of the old German watchman giving the hours in the patriarchal way—'Put your trust in the Divine Three, for after the darkest night cometh the break of day.'
"Last night the trance seemed over. All was changed. My sweetest one was haunted by strange visions; to her excited mind and renewed speech, every fold of the curtains was a spirit, every sound an alarm. For hours I sat with her trembling hands in mine, soothing her with the old hymns that she loves. To a certain extent, however, there is more hope, more of returning power. Is it a superstition to think that she began to revive when in the churches at Holmhurst, Hastings, Hurstmonceaux, Alton, and Pau prayers (and in many cases how earnest) were being offered up for her restoration?
"Two P.M.—My darling has been sitting up in bed listening to sweet voices, which have been singing to her; but they were no earthly voices which she heard.
"Ten P.M.—She has just declared that she sees Ruth Harmer (a good, sweet girl she used to visit, who died at Hurstmonceaux) standing by her bedside. 'It is Ruth Harmer—look at Ruth Harmer,' she said. But it was not a voice of terror; it was rather like the apostolic question, 'Who are these who are arrayed in white robes, and whence come they?' There has also been a time when she has spoken of 'dear Holmhurst, dear beautiful Holmhurst,' in the most touching way."