They found Mag in a dull, heavy sleep, from which Dr. Norton said she would awake again; and she did, at short intervals, all through the night. As morning dawned, she awoke more fully and asked for a drink. A miner with a sorrowful face brought it in a cup, which Mrs. Norton took from him and held to her lips. She drained it, and then, looking at the tender, pitying eyes fixed on hers, said fretfully:
“What brings a leddy here to look at me? Take her away and bring my boy. And who’s yon?” she asked half fearfully, as Dr. Norton came across the room and laid his finger on her pulse.
“It’s Dr. Norton,” said his wife gently; “your Philip’s brother, you know; and he is doing all he can to make you comfortable.”
“Dr. Norton!” said the dying woman, in a strange, awe-struck whisper. “It was him, then, that told me ’twas a death-blow I’d gotten, when I asked him in the night.”
“Shall I take him out?” whispered the rector, thinking his presence troubled her.
“No, let him be,” said Mag, her voice husky now, but as strong and steady as if the chill of death were not already creeping over her. “Let him stay. I’m fair glad to have him see me lie here broken and mangled the way I am. I don’t ask him to forgive me, but happen it will be a comfort to him to see the one that sent his brother to his death taken the same way herself. Oh, if I had only died long ago, before I brought grief to them all!”
Long ago, when Philip Norton, who had married a girl very far beneath him, met with his violent death, his brother had said that he never could forgive the woman who had been the means of bringing such unutterable misery upon Philip and all who loved him. But as he looked down on her now, all bitterness and malice faded out of Dr. Norton’s heart, and he assured her in earnest, broken words of his entire forgiveness.
“Good words,” she murmured, so low this time that Mrs. Norton, kneeling by her side, could hardly catch them; “good words to hear. Maybe if he can forgive me, the Lord will.”
“Indeed He will,” sobbed Mrs. Norton.
“Do you think He will?” said Mag earnestly. She had no power to move her neck, but she turned her eyes eagerly to the speaker. “I heard it said once, a life ’ill be asked for a life. My life’s poor pay for one like Philip’s. I never was one to know much about church an’ praying, but I’ve asked in a rough sort of way if He would take my life of me if I could have patience to wait till He was ready, for many’s the time I’ve longed to put an end to it myself.”