The door at the other end of the hall opened and Dr. Melton’s light, uneven footstep echoed back of her. She did not turn. He laid a hand on her shoulder. It was trembling, and with a wonderful consciousness of endless courage she turned to comfort him. His lips were twitching so that for an instant he could not speak. Then, “She’ll pull through. I’m pretty sure now, she’ll—” he got out and leaned against the wall.
Lydia took him into a protecting embrace as though it were his baby who had turned back from the gates of death. She had come into a larger heritage. She was mother to all that suffered. Looking down on the head which, for an instant, lay on her bosom, she noticed how white the hair was. He was an old man, her godfather, he had been on a long strain—. He looked up at her. And then in an instant it was over. He had mastered himself and had grasped the handle of the basin.
“How long has this been boiling?” he asked.
Lydia pointed to her watch, hanging on the wall. “Three minutes by that,” she said. “May I leave to tell ’Stashie?”
The doctor nodded absently.
Neither spoke of Paul.
Lydia hurried across the dark, silent house with swift sureness. The happiness she was about to confer cast a radiance upon her. She touched the door to the servant’s room, and ran her fingers lightly over it to find the knob. Faint as the noise was, it was answered instantly by a stir inside. There was a thud of bare feet and a quick rush. Lydia felt the door swing open before her in the darkness and spoke quickly to the trembling, breathing form she divined there, “The doctor says she’s safe.”
Strong arms were about her, hot tears not her own rained down on her face. Before she knew it, she was swept to her knees, where, locked in the other’s close embrace, she felt the big heart thump loud against her own and heard go up above her head a wild “Oh, God! Oh, Mary Mother! Oh, Christ! Oh, Mary Mother! Glory be to God! Hail, Mary, Mother of God! Thanks be to God! Thanks be—”
Kneeling there in the blackness, with her servant’s arms around her, Lydia thought it the first prayer she had ever heard.