When Rachel reached the waggon she found that her mother was more or less recovered. At any rate the attack of fever had left her so that she felt able to rise from her bed. Now, although still weak, she was engaged in packing away the garments of her dead baby in a travelling chest, weeping in a silent, piteous manner as she worked. It was a very sad sight. When she saw Rachel she opened her arms without a word, and embraced her.
“You were not frightened about me, mother?” asked the child.
“No, my love,” she answered, “because I knew that no harm would come to you. I have always known that. It was a mad thing of your father to send you to such a place at such a time, but no folly of his or of anyone else can hurt you who are destined to live. Never be afraid of anything, Rachel, for remember always you will only die in old age.”
“I am not sure that I am glad of that,” answered the girl, as she pulled off her wet clothes. “Life isn’t a very happy thing, is it, mother, at least for those who live as we do?”
“There is good and bad in it, dear; we can’t have one without the other—most of us. At any rate, we must take it as it comes, who have to walk a path that we did not make, and stop walking when our path comes to an end, not a step before or after. But, Rachel, you are changed since yesterday. I see it in your face. What has happened to you?”
“Lots of things, mother. I will tell you the story, all of it, every word. Would you like to hear it?”
Her mother nodded, and, the baby-clothes being at last packed away, shut the lid of the box with a sigh, sat down upon it and listened.
Rachel told her of her meeting with Richard Darrien, and of how he saved her from the flood. She told of the strange night that they had spent together in the little cave while the lions marched up and down without. She told of her vigil over the sleeping Richard at the daybreak, and of the dream that she had dreamed when she seemed to see him grown to manhood, and herself grown to womanhood, and clad in white skins, watching him lashed to the trunk of a gigantic tree as the first arrows of sunrise struck down the lanes of some mysterious forest. She told of how her heart had been stirred, and of how afterwards in the mist by the water’s brink his heart had been stirred also, and of how they had kissed each other and wept because they must part.
Then she stopped, expecting that her mother would be angry with her and scold her for her thoughts and conduct, as she knew well her father would have done. But she was not angry, and she did not scold. She only stretched out her thin hands and stroked the child’s fair hair, saying:
“Don’t be frightened, Rachel, and don’t be sad. You think that you have lost him, but soon or late he will come back to you, perhaps as you dreamed—perhaps otherwise.”