And Lily went to sleep in his lap, waiting.
The moon came up, and Conway wrapped Lily in a shawl, but still held her in his arms. And as he sat holding her and waiting with a fast-beating heart for the old nurse, all his wasted life passed before him.
He saw himself as he had not for years—his life a failure, his fortune gone. He wondered how he had escaped as he had, and as he thought of the old Bishop's words, he wondered why God had been as good to him as He had, and again he uttered a silent prayer of thankfulness and for strength. And with it the strength came, and he knew he could never more be the drunkard he had been. There was something in him stronger than himself.
He was a strong man spiritually—it had been his inheritance, and the very thought of anything happening to Helen blanched his cheek. In spite of the faults of his past, no man loved his children more than he, when he was himself. Like all keen, sensitive natures, his was filled to overflowing with paternal love.
“My God,” he thought, “suppose—suppose she has gone back to Millwood, found none of us there, thinks she had been deserted, and—and—”
The thought was unbearable. He slipped in with the sleeping Lily in his arms and began to put her in bed without awakening her, determined to mount his horse and go for Helen himself.
But just then the old nurse, frantic, breathless and in a delirium of religious excitement, came in and fell fainting on the porch.
He revived her with cold water, and when she could talk she could only pronounce Helen's name, and say they had run off with her.
“Who?”—shouted Conway, his heart stopping in the staggering shock of it.
The old woman tried to tell Jud Carpenter's tale, and Conway heard enough. He did not wait to hear it all—he did not know the mill was now slowly burning.