How she pitied her sorrows—the separation from him who had won her young, guileless heart, the news that he was lost to her, then of his death! Ah how could she bear such tidings of Espy! He would never love another; but he might die. She shivered and turned pale at the very thought. Ah, God grant she might be spared that heart-breaking grief! But should it come, she would live single all her days; she could never be forced or persuaded to do as her mother had done; her nature was less gentle and yielding, better fitted to brave the storms of life. That loveless marriage! ah, how sad! how dreadful the trials that followed!
And her mother had married again. Rolfe Heywood was not really dead, and perhaps—ah yes, it must have been he who had found and won her, he the one whom she had always loved; Ethel was certain of it, certain that none but he could have reconciled her, the bereaved, heart-broken mother, to life, and so quickly gained her for his bride.
And had she forgotten her child in her new-found happiness? the child who was now searching so eagerly, lovingly for her? No, no, the tender mother-love could not be so easily quenched! No doubt unavailing efforts had been made to recover her lost treasure; and though other little ones had perhaps come to share that love, the first-born held her own place in the mother’s heart.
“Oh, when shall I find her? how can I endure this waiting, waiting in suspense? ’Tis the hardest thing in life to bear!” she exclaimed half aloud, forgetting that she was not alone; letting her work fall in her lap while she clasped her hands together over her beating heart and drew a long, sighing breath.
“What—what is it?” cried Madame Le Conte, starting from her sleep and rubbing her eyes. “Has anything happened?”
“No, nothing. How thoughtless I have been to disturb your slumbers!” Ethel said, rising, bending over her, and gently stroking her hair.
“Oh,” sighed the Madame, “it is no matter! my dreams were not pleasant: I am not sorry to have been roused from them. But what is it that you find so hard to bear?”
“This suspense—this doubt whether my mother still lives; whether I shall ever find her.”
“We will! we must!” cried the Madame with energy, starting up in her chair as she spoke. “They say money can do everything, and I will pour it out like water!”
“And I,” said Ethel low and tremulously, “will pray, pray that, if the will of God be so, we may be speedily brought together; and prayer moves the Arm that moves the universe.”