His parting directions recalled Rosamond to a remembrance of what had passed between the doctor and herself that morning. She looked round again anxiously to the window.
The sun was just sinking beyond the distant house-tops; the close of day was not far off.
As she turned her head once more toward the bed, a momentary chill crept over her. She trembled a little, partly at the sensation itself, partly at the recollection it aroused of that other chill which had struck her in the solitude of the Myrtle Room.
Stirred by the mysterious sympathies of touch, her mother's hand at the same instant moved in hers, and over the sad peacefulness of the weary face there fluttered a momentary trouble—the flying shadow of a dream. The pale, parted lips opened, closed, quivered, opened again; the toiling breath came and went quickly and more quickly; the head moved uneasily on the pillow; the eyelids half unclosed themselves; low, faint, moaning sounds poured rapidly from the lips—changed ere long to half-articulated sentences—then merged softly into intelligible speech, and uttered these words:
"Swear that you will not destroy this paper! Swear that you will not take this paper away with you if you leave the house!"
The words that followed these were whispered so rapidly and so low that Rosamond's ear failed to catch them. They were followed by a short silence. Then the dreaming voice spoke again suddenly, and spoke louder.
"Where? where? where?" it said. "In the book-case? In the table-drawer?—Stop! stop! In the picture of the ghost—"
The last words struck cold on Rosamond's heart. She drew back suddenly with a movement of alarm—checked herself the instant after, and bent down over the pillow again. But it was too late. Her hand had moved abruptly when she drew back, and her mother awoke with a start and a faint cry—with vacant, terror-stricken eyes, and with the perspiration standing thick on her forehead.
"Mother!" cried Rosamond, raising her on the pillow. "I have come back. Don't you know me?"
"Mother?" she repeated, in mournful, questioning tones—"Mother?" At the second repetition of the word a bright flush of delight and surprise broke out on her face, and she clasped both arms suddenly round her daughter's neck. "Oh, my own Rosamond!" she said. "If I had ever been used to waking up and seeing your dear face look at me, I should have known you sooner, in spite of my dream! Did you wake me, my love? or did I wake myself?"