She lost count of time, it might have been but a few seconds that she knelt there broken-hearted; it might have been a cycle of years; the din from the streets outside, the bustle inside the house only reached her ears like sounds that come in a dream. A kind of torpor had fallen over the broken-hearted girl's senses and mercifully saved her from further pain. She closed her eyes and semi-consciousness wrapped her in a kindly embrace. Semi-consciousness or a happy dream. She could not tell. All that she knew was that suddenly all misery and all suffering fell away from her; that an invisible presence was in the room which was like that of the angel of peace, and that strong, kind arms held her closely, so that she no longer felt that an awful chasm yawned before her and that she was falling into a hideous abyss where there was neither hope nor pardon. Of course it must have been a dream--such dreams as come to the dying who have suffered much and see the end of all their woe in a prescient glimpse of heaven--for it seemed to her that the kind grey eyes which she loved were looking on her now, that they smiled on her with infinite tenderness and infinite understanding, and that the lips which she had longed to kiss whispered gentle, endearing words in her ear.
"It is your love, Madonna, which led me to victory. Did I not say that with it as my shield I could conquer the universe?"
"Mark," she murmured, "you are hurt?"
"Not much, dear heart," he replied with that quaint laugh of his which suddenly turned this delicious dream into exquisite reality, "kind hands have tended me and gave me some clean clothing. I would have had you in my arms ere now, but was too dirty an object to appear before you."
Then the laughter died out from his eyes, they became intent, searching, desperately anxious.
"Madonna," he whispered--and he who for three days had faced every kind of danger, trembled now with apprehension--"what you said to my mother--a moment ago--did you mean it?"
"Your love, Mark," she murmured in reply, "is all that I live for now."
Then he folded her in his arms once more.
"Mother, dear," he said, "you must love her too. My whole happiness hangs upon her kiss."
EPILOGUE