“I know—I know,” said Harold.
“She spoke of you: they were almost her last words. You will come with me, friend?”
Harold was a man who never wept—never could weep—but his face grew pale, and there came over him a great awe. His step faltered, even more than her own, as he followed Olive up-stairs.
Her hand trembled a moment on the latch of the door. “No,” she said, as if to herself,—“no, it is not my mother; my mother is not here!”
Then she went in composedly, and uncovered the face of the dead; Harold standing beside her.
Olive was the first to speak. “See,” she whispered, “how very placid and beautiful it looks!—like her and yet unlike. I never for a moment feel that it is my mother.”
Harold regarded with amazement the daughter newly orphaned, who stood serenely beholding her dead. He took Olive's hand, softly and with reverence, as if there were something sacred in her touch. His she scarcely seemed to feel, but continued, speaking in the same tranquil voice:
“Two hours ago we were so happy, she and I, talking together of holy things, and of the love we had borne each other. And can such love end with death? Can I believe that one moment—the fleeting of a breath—has left of my mother only this?”
She turned from the bed, and met Harold's eye—intense, athirst—as if his soul's life were in her words.
“You are calm—very calm,” he murmured. “You stand here, and have no fear of death.”