"Is it?" said Margaret, with flushing cheeks and brightening eyes; "is it? That's good to hear---O how good! And tell me, Annie--he knows I shall not trouble him long--has he, has he forgiven me?"
"Not that alone," said Annie quietly. "Only yesterday he said, with tears in his eyes, how he loved you still."
There was silence for a moment, as Margaret covered her eyes with her hands. Then, raising her head, in a voice choked with sobs she said, with a blinding rush of tears, "O Annie, Annie, I can't be all bad, or I should never have won the love of that brave, true-hearted man."
She spoke but little after this; and Lionel's name never passed her lips--she seemed to have forgotten all about him and her desire to see him. From time to time she mentioned Geoffrey--no longer, as in her delirium, with pity, but with a kind of reverential fondness, as one speaks of the dead. As the night deepened, she became restless again, tossing to and fro, and muttering to herself; and bending down, Annie heard her, as she had often heard her before, engaged in deep and fervent prayer. Then she slept; and, worn out with watching, Annie slept also.
It was about four o'clock in the morning when Annie felt her arm touched; and at once unclosing her eyes, saw Margaret striving to raise herself on her elbow. There was a bright weird look in her face that was unmistakable.
"It's coming, Annie," she said, in short thick gasps; "it's coming, dear--the rest, the peace, the home! I don't fear it, Annie. Ive--Ive had that one line running in my brain, 'What though my lamp was lighted late, there's One will let me in.' I trust in His mercy, Annie, who pardoned Magdalen; and--God bless you, dear; God in His goodness reward you for all your love and care of me; and say to Geoffrey that I blessed him too, and that I thanked him for all his--your hand, Annie--so bless you both!--lighted late, there's One will--"
And the wanderer was at rest.
[CHAPTER X.]
AFTER THE WRECK.
They looked to Bowker to break the news to Geoffrey; at least so Charley Potts said, after a hurried conference with Til and her mother, at which Annie Maurice, overwhelmed by the reaction from excessive excitement, had not been present. They looked to Bowker to perform this sad duty--to tell Geoffrey Ludlow that the prize which had been so long in coming, and which he had held in his arms for so short a time, was snatched from him for ever. "For ever," said old William: "that's it. He bore up wonderfully, so long as he thought there was any chance of seeing her again. He hoped against hope, and strove against what he knew to be right and just, and would have made any sacrifice--ay, to the extent of bowing his head to his own shame, and taking her back to his home and his heart. If she had recovered; and even if she would have shown herself willing to come back--which she never would--I could have faced Geoff, and told him what his duty was, and fought it out with him to the last. It would have rather done me good, such a turn as that; but I can't bear this job;--I can't bear to see my old friend, to have to tell him that it's all over, that the light of his life has died out, that-- Upon my soul," said old William energetically, "I think they might have got some one else to do this. And yet I don't know," said he, after a moment's pause: "the women couldn't be expected to do it. As for Charley, he'd have bungled it, safe. No, I'll go and do it myself; but I'll wait till to-morrow, I think: there's no good adding another day's anguish to the dear fellow's life."