She clutched at the arms of her chair, to keep her, and held her breath that it make no sound.
Erskine went on tiptoe back to his room, and his mother, who had almost spent her physical strength, sank limply back into her chair. But before the clock struck again she had got to her knees. All the while she had been conscious of a strange reluctance about going to God with this trouble. Accustomed as she was, and had been ever since she became a praying woman, to taking all things, small as well as great, to Him, it had seemed strange even to herself that she held back.
Not that she had said that she would not pray, she had simply shrunken back with a half-frightened "Not yet, I am not ready yet; let me think." But she reached the moment when she understood that she must have help and must have it at once, and that only God could give it.
She knelt long; at first speaking no words, not thinking words. Then she broke into short, half-sobbing ejaculations: "Lord, show me the way. Christ, son of Mary, son of God, help me!" And then the habit of years asserted itself and the sorely shaken woman entered wholly within the refuge and poured out her soul in prayer.
When she arose from her knees, the rosy tints of a new day were beginning to flush the east. She drew her shades and went back to her bed and slept. Some things had been settled for her; she need not think about them any more.
The woman who a few hours later appeared at the breakfast table in a white morning dress and with her hair carefully arranged, showed little trace of her night's vigil, though her son regarded her searchingly.
"I am thankful to see you here," he said. "I was quite worried about you last night. It is so unusual not to meet you at dinner and have a little chat with you. You did not even give a fellow a chance to say good-night! I was sure that something was wrong." His wife laughed.
"Erskine cannot get away from the idea that he is his mother's nursemaid," she said lightly. "And he is a real 'Miss Nancy' for worrying. Such a night as he gave me, merely because you did not choose to come down to dinner! He must have trotted out to your door to listen twenty times, at least."
"Twice, anyway," said Erskine, gayly. "Never mind, though; she is all right this morning, and that is more than I dared to hope." But he watched her closely.
"What tired you so, mamma? Or rather, who did? Irene said you had company all the afternoon."