"Let me think, let me think," the lips murmured wearily. "My son—was a defaulter and a thief—John Hampstead knew. John Hampstead showed him the better way." She turned her head weakly and eased her body in the chair, as if to make even this slight effort at conversation less laborious, and then began to speak once more:
"But he was not strong enough to walk that better way, so John Hampstead took the burden upon his own shoulders and carried it until my boy was strong enough to bear it for himself."
Sufficient strength had returned for one of her hands to exert a pressure on the hand that held it.
"Yes, mother," Rollie breathed fervently into her ear.
"But now," and the voice gained more volume, "but now he is strong enough. He has done a brave and noble thing at last. I forget my shame in pride and gratitude to God for my son that was lost and is alive again—forever more."
The last tone flowed out upon the current of a long, wavering sigh, which seemed to take the final breath from her body.
"Yes, mother!" the young man urged anxiously, putting an instinctive pressure upon the hands he held, as if to call the spirit back into her again. There was an instant in which he felt that it was gone. She had left him. But the next instant he felt it coming back again like a tide and stronger, much stronger, so that there was real color in her cheeks, and then the eyes opened and looked at him with a clear and steady light, with the glow of love and admiration in them.
"Thank God!" murmured the voice of Hampstead hoarsely. "She is back. She will stay."
"Yes," Mrs. Burbeck affirmed, faintly but valiantly, turning from the face of her son to that of the minister with a look of inexpressible gratitude and devotion. "Yes, I am back," she smiled reassuringly, "and to stay. I never had so much reason—so much to live for as now."
The enactment of this scene at the chair, so intense and so significant, could have consumed no more than two minutes of time. The congregation, keenly alive to the effect the disclosure must have upon the life of the mother, was in a state to witness with the most perfect understanding every detail of the action about the invalid's chair. While the issue was in doubt, the audience remained in an agony of suspense and apprehension.