“Her patience must be blessed,” said Dr. Spencer. “I think she will be better. Now that the suspense no longer preys on her, there will be more rest.”
“Rest,” repeated Dr. May, supporting his head on his hand; and, looking up dreamily—“there remaineth a rest—”
The large Bible lay beside him on the table, and Dr. Spencer thought that he would find more rest there than in his words. Leaving him, therefore, his friend went to undertake his day’s work, and learn, once more, in the anxious inquiries and saddened countenances of the patients and their friends, how great an amount of love and sympathy that Dr. May had won by his own warmth of heart. The patients seemed to forget their complaints in sighs for their kind doctor’s troubles; and the gouty Mayor of Stoneborough kept Dr. Spencer half an hour to listen to his recollections of the bright-faced boy’s droll tricks, and then to the praises of the whole May family, and especially of the mother.
Poor Dr. Spencer! he heard her accident described so many times in the course of the day, that his visits were one course of shrinking and suffering; and his only satisfaction was in knowing how his friend would be cheered by hearing of the universal feeling for him and his children.
Ethel wrote letters to her brothers; and Dr. May added a few lines, begging Richard to come home, if only for a few days. Margaret would not be denied writing to Hector Ernescliffe, though she cried over her letter so much that her father could almost have taken her pen away; but she said it did her good.
When Flora came in the afternoon, Ethel was able to leave Margaret to her, and attend to Mary, with whom Miss Bracy’s kindness had been inefficacious. If she was cheered for a few minutes, some association, either with the past or the vanished future, soon set her off sobbing again. “If I only knew where dear, dear Harry is lying,” she sobbed, “and that it had not been very bad indeed, I could bear it better.”
The ghastly uncertainty was too terrible for Ethel to have borne to contemplate it. She knew that it would haunt their pillows, and she was trying to nerve herself by faith.
“Mary,” she said, “that is the worst; but, after all, God willed that we should not know. We must bear it like His good children. It makes no differences to them now—”
“I know,” said Mary, trying to check her sobs.
“And, you know, we are all in the same keeping. The sea is a glorious great pure thing, you know, that man cannot hurt or defile. It seems to me,” said Ethel, looking up, “as if resting there was like being buried in our baptism-tide over again, till the great new birth. It must be the next best place to a churchyard. Anywhere, they are as safe as among the daisies in our own cloister.”