"It's been too still where her soul has been dwelling," Kate replied in a whisper. "Can't you see she's on those bitter seas watching for the ice to crush David's ship? It's not yet madness, only a profound dream--a recurring hallucination. We must break it up--oh, we must!"
She carried in the lamps when they came, placing them where their glow would not trouble those burning eyes; and when Mrs. Hays brought the tea and toast, whispering, "She'll take nothing," Kate lifted her friend in her determined arms, and, having made her comfortable, placed the tray before her.
"For old sake's sake, Honora," she said. "Come, let us play we are girls again, back at Foster, drinking our tea!"
Mechanically, Honora lifted the cup and sipped it. When Kate broke pieces of the toast and set them before her, she ate them.
"You are telling me nothing about the babies," Kate reproached her finally. "Mayn't we have them in for a moment?"
"I don't think they ought to come here," said Honora faintly. "It doesn't seem as if they ought to be brought to such a place as this."
But Kate commanded their presence, and, having softly fondled them, dropped them on Honora's bed and let them crawl about there. They swarmed up to their mother and hung upon her, patting her cheeks, and investigating the use of eyelids and of ropes of hair. But when they could not provoke her to play, they began to whimper.
"Honora," said Kate sharply, "you must laugh at them at once! They mustn't go away without a kiss."
So Honora dragged herself from those green waters beyond the fatal Banks, half across the continent to the little children at her side, and held them for a moment--the two of them at once--in her embrace.
"But I'm so tired, Kate," she said wearily.