“Mamma, what shall I bring you? I had better call Hildreth,” said Margaret, softly stealing away. But the hand that she had been rubbing now closed on hers with a tight, restraining clasp, and a deep, hollow, cavernous voice, that she scarcely recognized as her mother’s answered:
“No—no—call no one, my child—stay with me.”
Margaret dropped upon the sofa, beside her mother, with a look of mute wonder and devoted love, and seemed to await her further commands.
“My child,” spoke the same hollow, cavernous, awful voice, “speak to no living soul of what you have seen to-night.”
“I will not, dear mamma; but tell me what I can do for you.”
“Nothing, nothing, Margaret.”
“Can I not help you somehow?”
“I am beyond help, Margaret.”
“Mother, mother, trust in your loving child, the child of your heart, who would give you back her life if she could give you happiness with it, mother,” murmured Margaret, most tenderly, as she caressed and fondled the rigid form of that dark, sorrowful woman—“trust in your loving child, mother, your child that heard your heart calling her to-night over the moonlit waters, and through all the music and laughter came hurrying to your side.”
“Ah! so you did, my love, so you did; and I, so absorbed in my own thoughts, did not even ask you whence you came, or how, or why.”