Early one morning, following a night in which her mother had seemed much easier, and in the very first hour of her untimely sleep, the nurse shook her by the shoulder. In the one look that the two women exchanged her news was told. Fenella huddled on her clothes and followed to the sick-room. Her mother was breathing strangely. Every inspiration was like the hiccough that follows a fit of weeping in a child. Her brows were knitted—she seemed puzzled and absorbed. Occasionally she tried to lift a hand stiffly and clumsily toward her head. By noon all was over. The doctor called twice, and, for the first time in many days, failed to write a new prescription. The lawyer was telephoned for. About three o'clock in the afternoon two decent pew-opening bodies were admitted without question, stole upstairs, and, having performed their office, stole as quietly away. The charwoman stayed for tea, and uncovered a rich vein of reminiscence suitable for the occasion. The blinds were drawn down, the windows opened. Outside, in the square, was heard the champing of bits, the rattle of the harness, that poor Mrs. Barbour had loved to listen to of an afternoon in spring or autumn.
Toward evening, when they were all done with the dead woman, Fenella went softly upstairs. Nurse Ursula, upon whose breast, for want of a nearer, the orphaned girl's first passion of grief had spent itself, but whose attentions harassed her now, would have accompanied her, but she would have no one. She approached the door full of awe as well as sorrow. Within it seemed some dark angel, with brimming chalice, had been waiting till she was calm enough to drink. There was something sacramental in this first visit to her dead; her passion composed itself for the encounter. Through the lowered blinds the afternoon sun filled the room with a warm amber light. The windows were opened slightly at the bottom, and the fresh spring wind puffed and sucked at the light casement curtains. She laid her head down upon the pillow and put her lips to the chill, sunken temples, upon which she felt the hair still damp from the sweat of the death-struggle. As there are depths in the sea which the hardiest diver cannot support save with constraint of breathing, so there are depths of sorrowful reverie wherein the soul abdicates for a time its faculties of memory and comparison. Fenella did not cry nor remember nor rebel. The briny flood rose quietly—encompassed her utterly—covered her insensibly at the temperature of her own forsaken heart. Sorrow so deep has many of sleep's attributes. She had been vaguely conscious for some time of a knocking at the door before she raised her head. It was turned quite dark; the charwoman, with a candle lighting up her frightened face, stood in the open door.
"Mrs. Chirk! How dare you disturb me."
"Oh, miss, I'm sorry; but I knocked and knocked. Nurse is upstairs and Frances is out, and there's two gentlemen below says they must see you. I 'aven't told them nothink, miss, not knowin' as you'd 'ave me."
Some more of the dreary business of death, she concluded. She went to her own room, bathed her eyes, dressed her hair hurriedly, and came downstairs. She started as she opened the dining-room door. Her visitors were Lumsden and the Dominion manager.
XVII
A DREAM COMES TRUE
The two men were in evening dress, standing a good way apart. Both seemed ill at ease, and each showed it in a different fashion. Bryan was pulling at his fair moustache, and Mr. Dollfus, his watch in his hand, full of suppressed excitement, had evidently just checked himself in a nervous pacing of the carpet. Before she could give her indignation words, Bryan came quickly across the room, and kept her silent with a gesture.
"Miss Barbour, just a word before you say anything, and before Dollfus tells you our errand. I've brought him here to-night because I don't want either you or him to reproach me afterward that I came between you and even a hundred-to-one chance; but I want you to know before he begins that the whole thing's against my judgment, and against my inclination, too. Now then, Joe, fire away, and remember time's valuable."