"Return, father—you must return and cover the mouth of the place, and make it fast against her. Else, when she comes again herself, thinking to find me dead, and finds me vanished, she will fly and take the amphora too."
"It is there, then?"
"Yes indeed! I have seen it with my own eyes. She kissed it—her hideous lips kissed it! Then she hid it again."
"She will kiss it no more. She will not come back. The amphora and you—both in one moment! And I had determined to—— The irony of God! A banquet He spreads—but my teeth are gone. Yesterday this would have turned me into a good man; to-day it is too late. Lean on my arm, little heart. I'm strong enough to hold you up still."
They spoke again of the past, and Grace told her father what he had already learned: that John Lee was his brother's son. He heard the fact with indifference now.
So they passed painfully and slowly to their home, and in an hour Grace was upon her mother's bosom.
With wine came strength, and the suffering of her raw wrists was quickly lessened. She sank to sleep holding Annabel's hand; and when she was in easy slumber, the wife returned to her husband. He was sitting below beside a fire of peat, and he also slept heavily. She loosened his collar, and, though the touch was light as down, her hand at his throat awoke him. He leapt to his feet and cried out aloud and bade her stand back.
"I meant to ease you," she said.
Then he awoke and took her in his arms.
"Forgive me. I dreamed an evil dream. Come, gentle nurse; I know that she sleeps, else you would not have left her. And you are heavy-eyed with much prayer and thanksgiving to God. How well I guess what's filled your heart since I brought her home! Now, wife, you may rest in peace."