"Yes. It is right you should think of him. All his life fell at one blow. There is a sweetness in your grief—you had been the one happiness of her closing years; but think of the bitterness that was in his."
"Why was I not told?" he cried fiercely.
"You had enough to bear. We knew you would come home, and we waited."
"But you terrify me. How much more are you keeping back? Is Elizabeth safe? Is there any other cup that I must drink?"
"Hush! hush! I give you my word I have told you everything. Don't make it hard for me, Arthur. It sounds a poor thing to say that I have acted for the best, but it is the only thing left to say."
"Forgive me. I know you have."
So that inner voice which had told him that he would see his mother's face no more had spoken truly. How vividly he recalled that night of moonlight, that earnest pleading voice, that solemn farewell! But, as the anguish of the shock subsided, he found nothing left but softened thought, and the beginnings of a sad pathetic gratitude. She had never known the worst, for which he, too, could say, "God be thanked!" One significant phrase of Vickars vibrated through his mind like a chord of music—"she composed herself for the grave." He could see the tired hands meekly folded, the threads of life dropping one by one from the weary fingers, a holy softness on her face, the first wave of the Eternal peace rippling round the heart. That was not death—no, mere rest. And there came to him, too, like a sudden revelation, a thought which he was never to forget, the divine essential sacrifice in the lives of all good women. To live not only for others but in others, to toil and be forgotten, to be content that something fashioned from her own mind and flesh by prayer and tears and humble renunciation would live when she was gone, a flower drawing strength and loveliness from her own buried life—that was woman's lot, a thing divine as the Cross itself, and like the Cross, the expression of the eternal sacrifice of self.
"God help me to be worthy of such a sacrifice," he prayed. "But there never yet lived a man who was worthy of what a mother does for him. God help me to remember, and to see in all women something holy, for her dear sake."
The train was rapidly nearing Paddington. The blue sky was tinged with smoky grayness, the green fields were discoloured, and long rows of mean, shabby houses took the place of white cottages under hanging woods.
"And now, pull yourself together," Vickars said. "God help you in the next few hours."