She sat down and leaned her brow against the pane. She did not know that it was aching. She did not know that she was cold, exhausted; so exhausted that the morning-star in the outer heaven and the morning-star in her soul were to her the same. They stooped together, they merged into one great light, heralding a perfect day presently to be.
The night was over, and that other long night of travail and patience and faith, and strong rowing in darkness against the stream, was over, too, at last—at last. The book was finished.
The tears fell slowly from Hester's eyes on to her clasped hands, those blessed tears which no human hand shall ever intervene to wipe away.
To some of us Christ comes in the dawn of the spiritual life walking upon the troubled waves of art. And we recognize Him, and would fain go to meet Him. But our companions and our own fears dissuade us. They say it is only a spirit, and that Christ does not walk on water, that the land whither we are rowing is the place He has Himself appointed for us to meet Him. So our little faith keeps us in the boat, or fails us in the waves of that windswept sea.
It seemed to Hester as if once, long ago, shrinking and shivering, she had stood in despair upon the shore of a great sea, and had heard a voice from the other side say, "Come over." She had stopped her ears; she had tried not to go. She had shrunk back a hundred times from the cold touch of the water that each time she essayed let her trembling foot through it. And now, after an interminable interval, after she had trusted and doubted, had fallen and been sustained, had met the wind and the rain, after she had sunk in despair and risen again, she knew not how, now at length a great wave—the last—had cast her up half drowned upon the shore. A miracle had happened. She had reached the other side, and was lying in a great peace after the storm upon the solemn shore under a great white star.
Hester sat motionless. The star paled and paled before the coming of a greater than he. Across the pause which God has set 'twixt night and day came the first word of the robin. It reached Hester's ear as from another world—a world that had been left behind. The fragmentary notes floated up to her from an immeasurable distance, like scattered bubbles through deep water.
The day was coming. God's creatures of tree and field and hill took form. Man's creature, the little stout church in their midst, thrust once more its plebeian outline against God's sky. Dim shapes moved athwart the vacancy of the meadows. Voices called through the gray. Close against the eaves a secret was twittered, was passed from beak to beak. In the nursery below a little twitter of waking children broke the stillness of the house.
But Hester did not hear it. She had fallen into a deep sleep in the low window-seat, with her pale forehead against the pane; a sleep so deep that even the alarum of the baby did not rouse her, nor the entrance of Emma with the hot water.
"James," said Mrs. Gresley, an hour later; as she and her husband returned through the white mist from early celebration, "Hester was not there. I thought she had promised to come."