It was Elsie's sad task to try to comfort and console where there was little to build hope upon: she could but dwell upon God's great mercy, his willingness to save, and the possibility that that last dying cry came from a truly penitent heart.
"I must try to believe it, else my heart would break!" cried the old lady. "O Elsie, my heart has bled for you, but your sorrow is not like unto my sorrow! You can rest in the sure and certain hope of a blissful reunion, you know that your beloved is rejoicing before the throne; while I—alas, alas! I know not where my poor boy is. And I am tortured with the fear that some of his blood may be found in my skirts—that I did not guide and instruct, warn and entreat him as I might; that my prayers were not frequent and fervent enough, my example all that it should have been."
"My dear friend, 'who is sufficient for these things?'" Elsie answered, weeping; "who has not reason for such self reproach? I think not you more than the rest of us."
"Ah!" sighed the old lady, "I wish that were so: had I but been to him, and to my own children, the mother you are to yours, my conscience would not now trouble me as it does."
Mrs. Travilla had caused a room to be fitted up as a studio for her older daughters, and here they were spending their afternoon—Vi painting, Elsie modelling and thinking, the while, of her absent lover, perchance busy in his studio with hammer and chisel.
"The sun is setting," exclaimed Violet at length, throwing down her brush. "What can have become of mamma that she has not been in to watch our progress?"
"I hope she has been taking a drive," Elsie answered, ceasing work also. "Come, let us go and dress for tea, Vi; it is high time."
They hastened to do so, and had scarcely completed their toilet when Harold rapped and asked if mamma were there.
"No? Where can she have gone?" he said. "Herbie and I came in from fishing a little while ago, and we have hunted for her almost everywhere."
"Except in the nursery," suggested Herbert. "Let's go and see if she's there."