“That’s nice!” the child said. “Stay with me, Norah.”
“Of course I will, old man. Just shut your eyes and go to sleep; I won’t go away.”
She knelt by his bed, patting him gently, until his deep breaths told that sleep had come to him again. The nurse touched her shoulder and pointed to the door; she got up softly and went out, looking through her open window at the first streaks of dawn in the east. Her dream was still vivid in her mind; even over her anxiety for the child in her care came the thought of it, and the feeling that Jim was very near now.
“Jim!” she whispered, gazing at the brightening sky.
In Germany, at that moment, two hunted men were facing dawn—running wildly, in dread of the coming daylight. But of that Norah knew nothing. The Jim she saw was the big, clean-limbed boy with whom she had ridden so often at Billabong. It seemed to her that his laughing face looked at her from the rose and gold of the eastern sky.
Then Geoffrey turned, and called to her, and she went to him swiftly.
It was four days later.
“Mother.” Geoffrey’s voice was only a thread of sound now. “Will Father come?”
“I have sent for him, little son. He will come if he can.”