He understood then which parental spirit had conquered the spirit of the child, and he smiled—sadly or gladly? He hardly knew. So strangely does death play with us all. Catherine went upstairs into her mother's room, which was dim and very hot. She shut the door, sent away the nurse, and went up to the bedside.
"Mother," she said, "William Foster is coming. Do you feel that you can see him?"
Mrs. Ardagh was perfectly conscious, although so near death.
"Yes," she said. "God means me to give him a message—God means me."
She lay silent; Catherine sat by her. Presently she spoke again.
"I shall convince him," she said quietly. "That is meant. If I did not God would strike him down. He would be cut off. But I shall make him know himself."
And then she repeated, with a sort of feeble but intense conviction,
"If I did not God would strike him down—yes—yes."
Something—perhaps the fact that her mother was so near death, so close to that great secret,—made her words, faltering though they were, go home to Catherine with the most extraordinary poignancy, as words had never gone before. She felt that it was true, that there was no alternative. Either Mark must be convinced now, by this bedside, in this hot, dark room from which a soul was passing, or he would, by some accident, by some sudden means, be swept away from the world that he was injuring, that he was poisoning.
Mrs. Ardagh seemed to grow more feeble with every moment that passed. And suddenly a great fear overtook Catherine, the dread that Mark would come too late, and then—God's other means! She trembled, and strained her ears to catch the sound of wheels. Mrs. Ardagh now seemed to be sinking into sleep—Catherine strove to rouse her. She stirred and said, "What is it?" in a voice that sounded peevish.