Queenie hesitated a moment, and then added:
“Knew her daughter. She was talking of her to me.”
This satisfied the woman, who, bowing assent, went from the room, leaving the two alone.
For a time Christine lay perfectly still, with her eyes closed, but her lips were constantly moving, and Queenie knew that she was praying, for she caught the words:
“Forgive for Christ’s sake, who forgave the thief at the very last hour!”
And all the while Queenie held the hot hands in hers and occasionally smoothed the gray hair back from the pale brow where the sweat of death was gathering so fast. At last Christine opened her eyes and looked fixedly at Queenie, who said to her very gently:
“What is it? Do you wish to tell me something?”
“Yes,” the dying woman answered, faintly. “I hope I am forgiven, and that I shall find rest beyond the grave. I used to pray so much in the cottage when I was alone—pray sometimes all night with my face on the cold floor. But the peace I asked for would not come. There was always a horror of blackness before me until I came here, when the darkness has been clearing, and now there is peace and joy, for I feel that God forgives me all my sin, and you, my child, have forgiven me too, and called me mother, and Phil is alive and safe. I’ve nothing more to live for, and I am so glad to die.”
She talked but little after that, and when she did speak her mind was wandering in the past, now at Chateau des Fleurs, now in Rome, where she watched by her mistress’ bedside, but mostly in Marseilles, where her baby was born, “her darling little girl baby,” whom she bade Queenie be kind to when she was gone. Then she talked of Margery and Paris, and the apartments in the Rue St. Honore, until her voice was only a whisper, and Queenie could not distinguish a word. She was dying very fast, and just at the last, before her life went out forever, Queenie bent over her, and kissing her softly, whispered:
“Mother, do you know that I am here—Queenie—your little girl?”