"Mother," he said softly, "will you meet me in heaven?--say yes."
"How can I, dear Hugh?"
"You can, dear mother," said he kissing her with exceeding tenderness of expression,--"my Saviour will be yours and take you there. Say you will give yourself to Christ--dear mother!--sweet mother! promise me I shall see you again!--"
Mrs. Rossitur's weeping it was difficult to hear. But Hugh hardly shedding a tear still kissed her, repeating, "Promise me, dear mother--promise me that you will;"--till Mrs. Rossitur in an agony sobbed out the word he wanted,--and Hugh hid his face then in her neck.
Mr. Carleton left the room and went down stairs. He found the sitting-room desolate, untenanted and cold for hours; and he went again into the kitchen. Barby was there for some time, and then she left him alone.
He had passed a long while in thinking and walking up and down, and he was standing musing by the fire, when Fleda again came in. She came in silently, to his side, and putting her arm within his laid her face upon it with a simplicity of trust and reliance that went to his heart; and she wept there for a long hour. They hardly changed their position in all that time; and her tears flowed silently though incessantly, the only tokens of sympathy on his part being such a gentle caressing smoothing of her hair or putting it from her brow as he had used when she was a child. The bearing of her hand and head upon his arm in time shewed her increasingly weary. Nothing shewed him so.
"Elfie--my dear Elfie," he said at last very tenderly, in the same way that he would have spoken nine years before--"Hugh gave his part of you to me--I must take care of it."
Fleda tried to rouse herself immediately.
"This is poor entertainment for you, Mr. Carleton," she said, raising her head and wiping away the tears from her face.
"You are mistaken," he said gently. "You never gave me such pleasure but twice before, Elfie."