Lufflin was a queer old fellow. He did not tell her these were but the morbid fancies of an hysterical woman, or blame himself for rousing them. He muttered something about low tide and George Cathcart, and bustled off down the stairs. She had a stronger mind than he, he suspected; silence and her own will would bring her to herself quicker than any comfort of his could do.
He proved to be right. She did not notice his going; stood at first looking into the dark bank of sea-horizon, as if she would have forced out of that vague Beyond where her child had gone the truth of all that had hurt her in her life. The dull thud of the retreating tide kept time to her thoughts,—finally came into them: it was so natural for her mind to swing back into whatever was real and at hand.
Not that she forgot the little fellow whose restless feet and hands were quiet at last in the graveyard at Salem: she never forgot him; since they laid him there, the thought of him had sounded in every day of her busy life like a faint hymn sung by lips far away, holy and calm,—a story of God in it.
But she held it down; watched the tide go out, measuring each sullen sweep with calculating eyes: the old swimming and fishing education in the inlet had not worn out its effect on her.
"The wreckers talk folly," she said; "no tide could touch the house,"—leaning farther out to see the two approaching figures go into the doorway beneath.
One man looked up, waving his hat as he passed, and she drew in her head with a sudden blush and a dewy light in her eyes, catching her breath.
"I have made no mistake," she thought, vehemently. "Look in his face! It is the right home for Jerome."
As she listened to the footsteps coming up the stairway, she moved uneasily about the room, touching almost every article in it with the eager fondness of a child: she knew what it had cost her; for the house had been paid for by money she had earned; it seemed as if she could remember now every seam she had stitched, every page she had copied,—the days of heat and sickness and weariness, when she had almost given up in despair.
That was all over now; she could put her hand on the result in actual stone and mortar; and as she thanked God for it, she went about, woman-like, touching and looking for the hundredth time to enjoy it more utterly. Nothing was too trivial to give her pleasure: she measured the depth of the window-frames with her arm, tested the grain of the doors, felt the texture of the curtains; how warm and clear a crimson they were!—remembering how becoming they would be, and touching her worn cheeks with a quick smile.
She peered through into the open door from the dining-room into the room beyond: she meant that for the library; planning rapidly where on the gray walls their one or two pictures could hang,—how Jerome's old desk would fit into one corner, and her work-table in the other: the book-shelves were below, and the books and what other home treasures she had been able to smuggle with her; she would arrange them all to-night, after he was in bed.