And then, oh, the “Peace, be still!” which he began to hear, faint at first, but growing in volume, until, at last, it became a mighty, thunderous command, before which the demons paled and slunk away, never to return! Oh, the tears of agony that had given way to tears of joy, of thanksgiving! Oh, the weakness that had been his strength! And, oh, the devotion of this fair girl––aye, and of her associates, too––but all through her! Had she proved her God before the eyes of the world? That she had! Day after day, clad in the impenetrable armor of her love, she had stood at this struggling lad’s side, meeting the arrows of death with her shield of truth! Night after night she had sat by his couch, her hand crushed in his desperate grasp, flouting the terror that stalked before his delirious gaze! What work she had done in those long weeks, none would ever know; but the boy himself knew that he had emerged from the valley of the shadow of death with a new mind, and that she had walked with him all the dark, cloud-hung way.
As they sat there in the bright sunlight that morning, their thought was busy with the boy’s future. Old plans, old ambitions, had seemed to lift with the lifting of the mortal curse which had rested upon him, and upward through the ashes of the past a tender flower of hope was pushing its way. He was now in a new world. The last tie which bound him to his family had been severed by his own father two weeks before, when the shadow of death fell athwart his mother’s brilliant path. Mrs. J. Wilton Ames, delicate in health when recalled from abroad, and still suffering from the fatigue of the deadly social warfare which had preceded her sudden flight from her husband’s consuming wrath, had failed to rally from the indisposition which seized her on the night of the grand Ames reception. For days she slowly faded, and then went quickly down under a sharp, withering attack of pneumonia. A few brief weeks after the formal opening of the Ames palace its 121 mistress had sighed away her blasted hopes, her vain desires, her petty schemes of human conquest and revenge, and had gone to face anew her problems on another plane of mortal thought. It was rumored by the servants that, in her last hours, when she heard the rustle of the death angel’s wings beside her, a great terror had stricken her, and she had called wildly for that son whom she had never cared to know. It was whispered that she had begged of her husband to seek the lad and lead him home; that she had pleaded with him to strive, with the boy, to find the better things of life; that she had begged him to warn and be warned of her present sufferings, as she lay there, stripped of every earthly aid, impoverished in heart, in soul, in mind, with her hands dusty and begrimed with the ashes of this life’s mocking spoils. How true these rumors, none might say. What truth lay hidden in her mad ravings about the parentage of Carmen, and her confused, muttered references to Monsignor Lafelle, no one knew. But of those who stood about her bedside there was none who could gainsay the awed whisperings of the servants that this haughty leader of the great city’s aristocracy had passed from this life into the darkness beyond in pitiable misery and terror.
The news of his mother’s death had come at a time when the boy was wild with delirium, at an hour when Waite, and Hitt, and Carmen stood with him in his room and strove to close their ears against the shrieking of the demon that was tearing him. Hitt at once called up Willett, and asked for instructions. A few minutes later came the message that the Ames house was forever barred against the wayward son. And it was not until this bright winter morning, when the lad again sat clothed and in his right mind, that Carmen had gently broken the news to him.
“I never knew her,” the boy had said at length, rousing from his meditations. “Few of the rich people’s children know their parents. I was brought up by nurses and tutors. I never knew what it was to put my arms around my mother, and kiss her. I used to long to, at times. And often I would plan to surprise her by suddenly running into her arms and embracing her. But then, when I would see her, she was always so far away, so cold, so beautifully dressed. And she seldom spoke to me, or to Kathleen, until we were grown up. And by that time I was running wild. And then––then––”
“There!” admonished Carmen, reaching over and taking his hand. “That’s in our little private cemetery, you know. The old error is dead, and we are not going to dig it up and rehearse it, are we?”
He smiled wanly. “I’m like a little baby,” he said sadly. 122 “I’m just beginning to live. And you are my mother, the only one I’ve ever known.”
Carmen laughed merrily. “Let me be your sister,” she said. “We are so near of an age, you know.”
He raised her hand to his lips. “You are my angel,” he murmured. “My bright, beautiful angel. What would I have been without you!”
“Now, Sidney!” she warned, holding up a finger. “What have I told you so often that Jesus said? ‘Of mine own self I can do nothing.’ Nor can I, Sidney dear. It was––” her voice sank to a whisper––“it was the Christ-principle. It worked through him as a channel; and it worked through me.”
“You’re going to teach me all about that,” he said, again pressing her hand to his lips. “You won’t cast me adrift yet, will you, little sister?”