"But she is so like herself, Laura. Harry is very restless; he has asked for you several times."
"I had forgotten there was any Harry!" she said, and moved slowly away.
Harry had slept most of the time during the two days, but was now awake and able to tell his wife all about the fire, and with what difficulty he made his way back to her mother and Margaret. How his arm was broken he did not know, but it was in the struggle to reach them. When he described the moment when they both dropped away from him, she apprehended the whole situation at once, and was down on her knees at his side in a moment.
"And I reproached you!" she cried. "Harry, can you ever forgive me?"
"I knew you would come out all right, at last," he said.
"I did not know you tried to save them, with one arm disabled," she said, very humbly. "Forgive me, Harry."
"There is nothing to forgive, dearie. But there is a great deal I wish I could forget. It was an awful moment when I found I must let one go; but, oh, Laura! when both went! I wonder I did not drop dead."
"You did, nearly, poor boy. But tell me how it was they both dropped?"
"Oh, I was such a fool! Knowing what characters they were, I ought to have known that when I said one must loose her hold, each would resolve to be that one. Margaret was grasping my disabled arm with all her strength, when I spoke; she actually threw it from her, then, as one disdaining to purchase her life by another's; your mother's last movement was different: she clasped my hand, kissed me, then dropped it gently, or to express it more truly, laid it down, as she would something forever done with; the action symbolized final quiet parting with life. You can't wonder that that awful moment deprived me of my senses."