They stood around her bedside, not speaking, or sighing, or moaning; they were too much awed by the exquisite peacefulness of her look for that. Suddenly she opened wide her eyes, and gazed intently forwards, as if she saw some happy vision, which called out a lovely, rapturous, breathless smile. They held their very breaths.
"I see the Light coming," said she. "The Light is coming," she said. And, raising herself slowly, she stretched out her arms, and then fell back, very still for evermore.
They did not speak. Mr Davis was the first to utter a word.
"It is over!" said he. "She is dead!"
Out rang through the room the cry of Leonard:
"Mother! mother! mother! You have not left me alone! You will not leave me alone! You are not dead! Mother! Mother!"
They had pent in his agony of apprehension till then, that no wail of her child might disturb her ineffable calm. But now there was a cry heard through the house, of one refusing to be comforted: "Mother! Mother!"
But Ruth lay dead.