The woman looked at the fire, but she did not again ask that it should be extinguished.
‘Rénée,’ she said, ‘it is out of all possibility that I should climb the hill passes. I can never see the Swiss country. And, indeed, here in mine own land I would choose to stay, that my last earthly look should rest on the valley I love so well. And for yourself, dear child, how could you go all that long and dangerous way? It was for my sake that you stayed, Rénée. But now—I would not keep you, child, if it were possible for you to gain safety, to reach friends, there in the land where one may worship the good God in peace. But as it is——’
‘Mother! do not speak so! Never, never can I desert you! You know I will not leave you while life holds us together.’
She rose to her feet. One might see the stateliness of her figure as she stood betwixt the fire-glow and the twilight, her head erect, her face full of the strength of love and trust.
‘Sing it again, mother,’ she said, ‘the hymn that you sang just now. And forget that Rénée has been afraid of shadows.’
The woman took her hand and held it tenderly between her own.
‘Tell me, Rénée,’ she said, ‘why were you frightened? Has any new thing chanced?’
‘No, no; it is the long weariness, the uncertainty, the remembering—oh, it is just everything! Whilst you were ill, mother, I had no time to be frightened; but now, when we sit and watch the sun go down, I remember all that has happened, and I turn sick at my very heart.’
She shuddered. They had passed, those two women, through terror enough to try any mortal nerves, and privations sufficient to exhaust the strongest frame. It was small marvel that Rénée trembled as she remembered the past.
‘Sing, mother,’ she said again; ‘Gaspard was always wont to say that your songs uplifted his courage.’