The hours passed slowly; the night was very long; the old man did not go to bed. Not for the first time, he was asking himself searching questions about the mystery of life and death, but the great enigma was still baffling him. Could it be possible that while he had occupied himself with the mere shows and semblance of things, calling them by great names—Civilisation and Progress—that simple soul upstairs had been grasping the eternal realities?
There were questions that cut deeper even than that, and now they faced him one by one. Was it true that he had married merely in the hope of having some one to carry on his name and thus fulfil the aspirations of his pride? Had he for nearly forty years locked his heart away from the woman who had been starving for his love, and was it only by the loss of the son who was to have been the crown of his life that they were brought together in the end?
Thus the hoofs of the dark hours beat heavily on the great Proconsul's brain, and in the awful light that came to him from an open grave, the triumphs of the life behind him looked poor and small.
But meantime the palpitating air of the room upstairs was full of a different spirit. The old lady had apparently awakened from her restless sleep, for she had opened her eyes and was talking in a bright and happy voice. Her cheeks were tinged with the glow of health, and her whole face was filled with light.
"I knew I should see them," she said.
"See whom, my heart?" asked Fatimah, but without answering her, the old lady, with the same rapturous expression, went on talking.
"I knew I should, and I have! I have seen both of them!"
"Whom have you seen, my lady?" asked Fatimah again, but once more the dying woman paid no heed to her.
"I saw them as plainly as I see you now, dear. It was in a place I did not know. The sun was so hot, and the room was so close. There was a rush roof and divans all round the walls. But Gordon and Helena were there together, sitting at opposite sides of a table and holding each other's hands."
"Allah! Allah!" muttered Fatimah, with upraised hands.