“Yes, Christine,” Queenie replied, freeing herself from the stifling embrace, “I suppose I am changed. I feel it myself, and believe I shall die if I do not sleep. I have not slept a good sleep since I heard Phil was dead, and I have sent for you to hold me in your arms, just as you must have done when I was a baby, after mother died. Sing me the old lullabies you used to sing me then, and maybe I shall sleep. I feel as if I should—there is such a heaviness about my lids and pressure on my brain. Take me, Christine. Play I am a baby again. I can’t be very heavy now,” and she smiled a faint, shadowy smile, as she put up her arms to the woman who took her up so gladly and covered the wan face with kisses and tears, while she murmured words of pity and endearment.
“There, that will do—it wearies me,” Queenie said, and she laid her tired head upon Christine’s shoulder and closed her heavy eyelids. “Rock me to sleep, Christine, as you did at Chateau des Fleurs,” she whispered, faintly, and, sitting down in the chair, Christine rocked the poor little girl, and sang to her, in a low, sad voice, a lullaby of France, such as she used to sing when, as now, the dark curly head was pillowed on her breast.
Attracted by the sound, Margery stole softly to the door and looked in, but Christine motioned her away and went on with her song of “Mother Mary, guard my child,” until nature, which had resisted every exertion and every drug, however powerful, gradually began to yield—the head pressed more heavily, the rigid nerves softened, a slight moisture showed itself under the hair upon the forehead, and the eyes, which had been so wild and bright, were closed in slumber.
Queenie was asleep at last, and when Margery came again to the door of the room and saw the closed eyes and the parted lips, from which the breath came easily and regularly, she exclaimed:
“Thank God, she sleeps at last. You have saved her life—or, at least, her reason; but let me help you lay her down. She is too heavy for you to hold, and you are not strong.”
“No, no,” Mrs. La Rue answered, almost fiercely. “No, no, I will not give her up, now that I have her in my arms. I am not tired. I do not feel her weight any more than I did when she was a baby, and if I did, think you I would not do it all the same—I who have so longed to hold her as I do now. Go away, Margie, and leave us alone again.”
So Margery went away a second time, and busied herself below with some work she had been persuaded to take, and which was a part of Anna’s bridal trousseau, for that young lady had insisted upon her making the traveling dress, which was all there was now to finish of the elaborate and expensive wardrobe for which, it was said, the major’s money paid.
And while Margery worked in the sitting-room below, Mrs. La Rue sat in the chamber above, holding the sleeping girl, until her limbs were cramped, and numb—and ached with intolerable pain, while rings of fire danced before her eyes, and in her ears there was a humming sound, and a fullness in her head, as if all the blood of her body had centered there. And still she did not move, lest she should awaken the sleeper, but sat as motionless as a figure carved from stone, sometimes shutting her tired eyes, and again fixing them with a steady gaze upon the upturned face resting on her arm.
Two hours had gone by, and Mrs. La Rue was beginning to feel that her strength was failing her, when Queenie at last awoke, and said, very sweetly and kindly:
“I have been asleep, I am sure, and I feel so much better. How good in you, Christine, to hold me so long. It must have tired you very much. Thank you, dear old Christine!”