As if recalled from a very far distance, Ellen turned her head to me.
“It can’t happen, Roberta,” said she slowly.
I looked at her curiously. There was just enough light for me to see the outline of her face, and I felt as if she had pulled herself back by some great effort to answer me and that her spirit had been somewhere with Alec, free for the first time. And I felt for the rest of the ride as if in some obscure way he were near us; that Ellen could call to him through the dark.
His mother opened the door for us.
“I’m glad you’ve come,” she said with her profound simplicity. “He’s wanted you all his life, Ellen Payne.”
So we three women sat ourselves down for the night watch to learn what the morning would bring. Alec’s mother sat there, her hands folded, solid as a rock, impassive as fate. She had borne a great deal in her life and had grown strong with it, and whatever happened she would be there to help him. All through my life I shall remember Ellen’s face as it was through that long night, for it was the face of one who defies death and disaster; and what I mean only those who have brooded guardingly over the lives of those whom they love will understand. For there comes a moment in the lives of most women and some men when they seem to put their spirits, a tangible thing, between death and disaster and the beloved.
And one more thing I shall remember forever was Alec’s voice, as he cried out in his sleep, “Ellen,” and again, “Ellen,” as though, sunk fathoms deep in pain, he still called for her and his unconscious body groped for her in the darkness. So we sat and waited through the night, until the blessed word came to us at last that all was well with him.
There was only one more entry in the journal and then blank leaves, for I suppose she began another book that belonged to herself and Alec alone. It told of the accident and went on:—
“I felt as if I had been waiting for this one moment all my life; as if all I had ever been and could hope to be concentrated itself in those long hours; as though the arms of my spirit folded themselves around him as I prayed, and as I prayed I knew that my prayer had been answered. I was as certain that it was well with him as if I could penetrate into the future. And that night I knew the meaning of my long life, and that I had only been learning to love enough, so that when he called to me, ‘Ellen, Ellen,’ I should have learned how to love and how to give.”
THE END