I thrilled with a sudden sweetness of joy. A flood of sunshine bathed me. It was all over, then, the turmoil, the storm, the shipwreck. I was drifting on a tranquil ocean of content. Blissfully I closed my eyes. Oh, I was happy, happy!
In her cabin, with her, and she was nursing me—what had happened? What new turn of events had brought about this wonderful thing? As I lay there in the quiet, trying to recall the something that went before, my poor sick brain groped but feebly amid a murk of sinister shadows.
"Berna," I said, "I've had a bad dream."
"Yes, dear, you've been sick, very sick. You've had an attack of fever, brain fever. But don't try to think, just rest quietly."
So for a while longer I lay there, thrilled with a strange new joy, steeped in the ineffable comfort of her presence, and growing better, stronger with every breath. Memories came thronging back, memories that made me cringe and wince, and shudder with the shame of them. Yet ever the thought that she was with me was like a holy blessing. Surely it was all good since it had ended in this.
Yet there was something else, some memory darker than the others, some shadow of shadows that baffled me. Then as I battled with a growing terror and suspense, it all came back to me, the telegram, the news, my collapse. A great grief welled up in me, and in my agony I spoke to the girl.
"Berna, tell me, is it true? Is my Mother dead?"
"Yes, it's true, dear. You must try to bear it bravely."
I could feel her bending over me, could feel her hand holding mine, could feel her hair brush my cheek, yet I forgot even her just then. I thought only of Mother, of her devotion and of how little I had done to deserve it. So this was the end: a narrow grave, a rending grief and the haunting spectre of reproach.
I saw my Mother sitting at that window that faced the west, her hands meekly folded on her lap, her eyes wistfully gazing over the grey sea. I knew there was never a day of her life when she did not sit thus and think of me. I could guess at the heartache that gentle face would not betray, the longing those tender lips would not speak, the grief those sweet eyes studied to conceal. As, sitting there in the strange clouded sunset of my native land, she let her knitting drop on her lap, I knew she prayed for me. Oh, Mother! Mother!