All the Gracias friends were soon assembled at East Angels; even Mrs. Moore, invalid though she was, made the little journey by water, and was carried up to the house in an arm-chair by her husband and old Pablo. Recovering, if not more strength, then at least that renewed command of speech which often comes back for a time just before the end, Mrs. Thorne, late in the afternoon, opened her eyes, looked at them all, and then, after a moment, asked to be left alone with Garda, Margaret, and Evert Winthrop. Margaret thought that she had spoken Winthrop's name by mistake.
"She doesn't mean you, I think," she said to him, in a low tone.
"Yes, I mean Mr. Winthrop," murmured Mrs. Thorne, with a faint shadow of her old decision.
Her Gracias friends softly left the room. Even Dr. Kirby, after a few whispered words with Winthrop, followed them.
When the door was closed, Mrs. Thorne signified that she wished to take Margaret's hand. Then, her feeble fingers resting on it, "Garda," she said, in her husky voice, "Margaret—whom I trust entirely—has promised—to take charge of you—for a while—after—I am gone. Promise me—on your side—to obey her—to do as she wishes."
"Do not make her promise that," said Margaret. "I think she loves me; that will be enough."
Garda, crying bitterly, kissed Margaret, and then sank on her knees beside the bed, her head against her mother's arm. The sight of her child's grief did not bring the tears to Mrs. Thorne's eyes—already the calm that precedes death had taken possession of them; but it did cause a struggling effort of the poor harassed breath to give forth a sob. She tried to stroke Garda's hair, but could not. "How can I go—and leave her?" she whispered, looking piteously at Margaret, and then at Winthrop, as he stood at the foot of the bed. "She had—no one—but me." And again came the painful sound in the throat, though the clogged breast had not the strength to rise.
"If I could only know," she went on, desolately, to Margaret, the slow turning of the eyes betraying the approach of that lethargy which was soon to touch the muscles with numbness. "You have said—for a while; but you did not promise for longer. If I could only know, Margaret, that she would be under your care as long as she is so alone in the world, then, perhaps, it would be easier to die."
These words, pronounced with difficulty one by one, separated by the slow breaths, seemed to Winthrop indescribably affecting. It was the last earthly effort of mother-love.
Margaret hesitated. It was only for a moment that she was silent. But Evert took that moment to come forward, he came to the side of the bed where she was standing. "Give me your permission, Mrs. Thorne," he said to the dying woman. "Trust me, and I will fill the trust. Garda shall have every care, my aunt shall take charge of her." He was indignant with Margaret for hesitating.