“Dear Maria, your husband has but just gone for her,” breathed Grace. “She will soon be here.”
It seemed to satisfy her. She lay still, looking upwards, her breath, or Mrs. Akeman fancied it, growing shorter. Grace, hot tears blinding her eyes, bent forward to kiss her wasted cheek.
“Maria, I was very harsh to you,” she whispered. “I feel it now. I can only pray God to forgive me. I loved you always, and when that dreadful trouble came, I felt angry for your sake. I said unkind things to you and of you, but in the depth of my heart there lay the pain and the anger because you suffered. Will you forgive me?”
She raised her feeble hand and laid it lovingly on the cheek of Grace. “There is nothing to forgive, Grace,” she murmured. “What are our poor little offences one against the other? Think how much Heaven has to forgive us all. Oh, Grace, I am going to it! I am going away from care.”
Grace stood up to dash away her tears; but they came faster and faster. “I would ask you to let me atone to you, Maria,” she sobbed—“I would ask you to let me welcome Meta to our home. We are not rich, but we have enough for comfort, and I will try to bring her up a good woman; I will love her as my own child.”
“She goes to Cecil.” There was no attempt at thanks in words—Maria was growing beyond it; nothing but the fresh touch of the hand’s loving pressure. And that relaxed with the next moment and fell upon the bed.
Grace felt somewhat alarmed. She cleared the mist from her eyes and bent them steadily on Maria’s face. It seemed to have changed. “Do you feel worse?” she softly asked.
Maria opened her lips, but no sound came from them. She attempted to point with her finger to the door; she then threw her eyes in the same direction; but why or what she wanted it was impossible to tell. Grace, her heart beating wildly, flew across the little hall to the kitchen.
“Oh, Margery, I think she is sinking! Come you and see.”
Margery hastened in. Her mistress evidently was sinking, and was conscious of it. The eager, anxious look upon her face and her raised hand proved that she was wanting something.