“Ah, Tommy, you know I am proud of you now, so proud of you, that sometimes it fairly frightens me, and I dare not think of it.”
“Heaven knows,” he said, all the gay sound dying from his voice, as, stricken with remorse, he remembered the many times he had left her with no thought beyond the parting moment, “I’m not much to be proud of, but, mother—” taking up her thin hand and passing it over his face, once more driven to the last extremity to command his voice—“you and Nan are all I have on earth to care for me, and out in midocean, or in the far-off foreign ports, your love, like a constant prayer to keep me from harm, will be with me always. When I am at home once more I am going to be a good boy to you, mother. Nothing, not even the sea, shall ever part us again.”
“You have always been a good boy to me, Tommy—I only thought—I was afraid that—O never mind, I can wait for you, Tommy. I do not feel so nervous now.”
“There, that is right! We will meet again, mother, and then we will be very, very happy.”
He kissed her yearningly, reverentially. It seemed as if he stood awed before the heart that for a moment had disclosed itself in its most silent depths, and in that moment there had been revealed to him, with all its overwhelming strength, that divine love which is mightier than life. It seemed as if now, for the first time, and almost blinded by the revelation, he saw—his mother.
After a little silence, taking her face between his hands, he said, gently,—
“Mother, I want to see you smile once more before I go.”
“I will wait for you, Tommy,” she said again.
“And I will surely come back.”
When Miriam looked up there was a faint smile struggling through her tears, as there had been once before, two-and-twenty years in the past. Then he was gone.