Mrs. Martin stooped and kissed the pale earnest face of the dying woman.
"God will raise her up friends, never fear. The good Father never forsakes those who love and honour him."
Mrs. Rushmere threw her arms about her visitor's neck, and drew her head down to the pillow, while she whispered in her ear, "Take her out o' this, Mrs. Martin, as soon as I am gone. These strange women are killing her with their hard, unfeeling ways. It is a'most breaking my poor heart to see the dear child pining day by day."
"She will have her reward, my dear old friend, no one ever loses by suffering in a good cause."
Mrs. Martin sat for some time with the invalid, and explained to her the cause why Mr. Fitzmorris and her husband had not been up to see her, and promised that Mr. Martin should visit her on the morrow. On inquiring of Martha Wood for Mrs. Rowly and her daughter, she was not sorry to learn that they had walked down to the village.
"In the humour I feel towards them," she said to Dorothy, "I would rather that they made the acquaintance of my handwriting than of me."
It was Dorothy's practice to visit Mrs. Rushmere the first thing in the morning, and carry her a cup of tea before the inmates of the house were stirring. Mr. Rushmere slept in the same room with his wife, but, since her illness, occupied a separate bed. As Dorothy unclosed the chamber door, she was startled by a low, hoarse moaning, that seemed to proceed from the bed of the invalid. Alarmed at such an unusual occurrence, she hurried forward; the cup dropped from her hand, and, with a wild cry, she flung herself upon the bed, and clasped in her arms the still, pale figure that, for so many years, she had loved and honoured as her mother.
Mr. Rushmere was kneeling upon the floor, his face buried in the coverlid, holding in his trembling grasp the thin, white hand that no longer responded to the pressure.
"Mother! dear, blessed mother!" sobbed Dorothy, "speak to me again. One word, one little word. You must not leave me for ever without your love and blessing!"
"Alas! my child, she cannot, death has silenced the kind voice for ever," groaned the stricken old man. "My wife! my precious wife! I never knew half your value until now. All that you were, and have been to me. Oh speak to me, Mary, my lost darling, smile once more upon me as in the happy days gone by. Say that you forgive your Larry for all that he has said and done amiss. You were allers an angel of kindness to a stern husband. I have been a hard man to you; but I loved you with my whole heart, though I could not allers tell you how dear you were."