‘I am so glad you think so, miss; it is comfort to me to hear you say that. You were always so good to me,’ she continued gratefully. ‘Do you know, Miss Nelly dear, whenever I thought of death, I always pictured you as being by my side?’
‘Do you feel any pain or restlessness now, Margaret?’
‘No, miss; thank you. I feel quite peaceful and contented. I have done my task, though it has been a hard one at times. I don’t think I could have rested in my grave if I had not seen you.—Lift me up a little higher, please, and come a little closer. I can scarcely see you now. My eyes are quite misty. I wonder if all dying people think about their younger days, Miss Nelly? I do. I can see it all distinctly: the old broken fountain under the tree, where we used to sit and talk about the days to come; and how happy we all were there before she came. Your uncle was a different man then, when he sat with us and listened to your singing hymns. Sing me one of the old hymns now, please.’
In a subdued key, Eleanor sang Abide with me, the listener moving her pallid lips to the words. Presently, the singer finished, and the dying girl lay quiet for a moment.
‘Abide with me. How sweet it sounds! “Swift to its close ebbs out life’s little day.” I am glad you chose my favourite hymn, Miss Nelly. I shall die repeating these words: “The darkness deepens; Lord, with me abide.” Now it is darker still; but I can feel your hand in mine, and I am safe. I did not think death was so blessed and peaceful as this. I am going, going—floating away.’
‘Margaret, speak to me!’
‘Just one word more. How light it is getting! Is it morning? I can see. I think I am forgiven. I feel better, better! quite forgiven. Light, light, light! everywhere. I can see at last.’
It was all over. The weary aching heart was at rest. Only a woman, done to death in the flower of youth by starvation and exposure; but not before her task was done, her work accomplished. No lofty ambition to stir her pulses, no great goal to point to for its end. Only a woman, who had given her life to carry out a dying trust; only a woman, who had preserved virtue and honesty amid the direst temptation. What an epitaph for a gravestone! A eulogy that needs no glittering marble to point the way up to the Great White Throne.
CHAPTER VII.
Mr Carver sat in his private office a few days later, with Margaret’s legacy before him. A hundred times he had turned the paper over. He had held it to the light; he had looked at it upside down, and he had looked at it sideways and longways; in fact, every way that his ingenuity could devise. He had even held it to the fire, in faint hopes of sympathetic ink; but his labour had met with no reward. The secret was not discovered.