'No, no,' said his mother, grasping at his arm; 'not pass—nothing that is good goes quite away. They come back again, brighter and purer and more beautiful. My son, believe me! I am simple, I know, far too simple to be the wife and mother of great men; but,' smiling sweetly through her tears, 'the simple sometimes see further than the wise. And now let us come back to the house and welcome my new daughter and your dear friend.'
The meeting between Mrs. Gregory and her guests was very pleasant and touching. The traces of sadness which gave a new dignity to her charming face, her gentle motherliness, and her ardent anxiety to be sure that they were comfortable and at their ease, won Mrs. Lyster's warm heart at once. Aglaia, in whom Mrs. Gregory at once recognised a sensitiveness like her own, did not respond to her advances so readily; but she was careful not to alarm the child by being too demonstrative all at once, and in a very short time her gentle reverence told. Before that evening was over, Aglaia was talking in the little quaint fashion which was so peculiarly her own, answering with pretty childlike sedateness all the questions put to her, and looking up at Daddy Tom's mother with unmistakable admiration and confidence.
To Mrs. Gregory the evening that followed was almost dream-like in its charm. The delight of having her son with her, of waiting upon him, of seeing him take possession of the things which she had spent so many happy hours preparing for him, the pleasure of entertaining these dear guests, who had escaped, by her son's hand, from peril so awful that the memory of it made her shudder—the joy, after her long famine of home affections, in uniting them round her table; in looking from face to face; in listening to tales which were all of the valour of her boy, and the beauty and dignity of his city in the far East; whose wonderful arrangements, Mrs. Lyster would insist, were due to no one but himself—all this it would take a more graphic pen than mine to describe. I doubt, in fact, if words could do justice to it. But for a little pricking sense of discomfort, an ever-recurrent consciousness of something painful to be done before she could rest, Mrs. Gregory would have been perfectly happy that evening.
It came to an end, as all happy times must and will. Sumbaten, who, at her earnest entreaty, had been allowed to cross the Black Water with her adored Missy Sahib, had long since taken Aglaia to the pretty nursery provided for them. Family prayers had been read. Mrs. Lyster, who, while Tom went off with Hoosanee to see his new quarters, had lingered to tell one or two stories, which she could not tell before him, had risen to say good-night. Mrs. Gregory accompanied her to her room, and left her there.
The house was very still; she had a little silver lamp in her hand, with which it was her custom to go round every night and make sure that all the bolts and bars were fastened. Mrs. Lyster's room opened on to an upper gallery, which commanded the lower hall. She lingered for a moment, her heart beating, and her lips quivering nervously. The lights here were out; but the large hanging lamp below was alight still. As she stood looking down, her son came out of one of the rooms on the ground-floor and stood under it. 'Do you want the hall lamp put out?' he said. 'Hoosanee and I have been round.'
'Thank you, dear,' she answered nervously. 'Yes, put it out. I will say good-night to you in your room.'
Then she turned, ran hastily to her own room, and, having seized a packet which lay on the table, went back with it to the upper gallery.
The door of Tom's apartments stood open.
There was a little study exquisitely fitted up with everything a writer or student could require, and within it a spacious and luxurious bedroom. When Tom planned the house he had designed these rooms for his mother, and already, that evening, there had been a little amiable contest about them, which, 'possession being nine points of the law,' had ended, as it was bound to do, in Mrs. Gregory's triumph.