Part 54 (1/2)

”Herbert's face!” they heard her whisper, in an awe-struck voice.

”Then I have died at last, and am in heaven. Oh, how merciful! but I have not deserved it,--a sinner such as I.”

”Magdalene, my darling, you are in our own home! It is I who was lost, and have come back to you. Look at me. It is only the children that are in heaven. You and I are spared to each other on earth.” But for a long time her scattered faculties failed to grasp the truth.

Phillis went home at last, and left them. There was nothing she could do, and she was utterly spent; but Miss Mewlstone kept watch beside her charge until late into the night.

Little by little the truth dawned slowly on the numbed brain; slowly and by degrees the meaning of her husband's tears and kisses sank into the clouded mind. Now and again she wandered, but Herbert's voice always recalled her.

”Then I am not dead?” she asked him, again and again. ”They do not cry in heaven, and Barby was crying just now. Barby, am I dreaming! Who is this beside me? is it Herbert's ghost? only his hands are warm, and mine are so terribly cold. Why you are crying too, love; but I am to tired to understand.” And then she crept wearily closer and closer into his arms, like a tired-out child who has reached home.

And when Herbert stooped over her gently, he saw that the long lashes lay on her cheek. Magdalene had fallen asleep.

CHAPTER x.x.xVI.

MOTES IN THE SUNs.h.i.+NE.

That sleep was, humanly speaking, Magdalene's salvation.

At the greatest crisis of her life, when reason hung in the balance,--when the sudden influx of joy might have paralyzed the overwrought heart and brain,--at that moment physical exhaustion saved her by that merciful, overpowering sleep.

When she woke, it was to the resurrection of her life and love. Months afterwards she spoke of that waking to Phillis, when she lay in her bed weak as a new born babe, and the early morning light streamed full on the face of her slumbering husband.

They were alone; for Miss Mewlstone had just crept softly from the room. Her movement had roused Magdalene. Herbert, who was utterly worn out by his long watching, had just dropped asleep, with his head resting against the wood-work. He was still sitting in the arm-chair beside her, and only the thin profile was visible.

The previous night had been pa.s.sed by Magdalene in a semi-conscious state: delirious imaginations had blended with realities. There were flashes and intervals of comparative consciousness, when the truth rushed into her mind; but she had been too weak to retain it long.

That she was dreaming or dead was her fixed idea: that this was her husband's greeting to her in paradise seemed to be her one thought.

”Strange that the children do not kiss me too,” they heard her say once.

But now, as she opened her eyes, there was no blue misty haze through which she ever feebly sought to pierce. She was lying in her own room, where she had pa.s.sed so many despairing days and nights. The window was open; the sweet crisp morning air fanned her temples; the birds were singing in the garden below; and there beside her was the face so like, yet so unlike, the face from which she had parted four years ago.

For a little while she lay and watched it in a sort of trance; and then in the stillness full realization came to her, and she knew that she was not mad or dreaming. This was no imagination: it was reality.

With incredible effort, for she felt strangely weak, she raised herself on her elbow to study that dear face more closely, for the change in it baffled her. Could this be her Herbert? How bronzed and thin he had grown! Those lines that furrowed his forehead, those hollows in the temples and under the eyes, were new to her. And, oh, the pity of those gray hairs in the place of the brown wavy locks she remembered! But it was when she laid her lips against the scarred wrist that Herbert woke, and met the full look of recognition in his wife's eyes, for which he had waited so long.

Now he could fall upon his knees beside her, and crave that forgiveness for words and acts that had seared his conscience all these years like red-hot iron. But at the first word she stopped him, and drew his head to her breast:

”Oh, Herbert, hus.h.!.+ What! ask forgiveness of me, when I have sinned against you doubly,--trebly,--when I was no true wife, as you know?

Oh, do not let us ask it of each other, but of G.o.d, whom we have so deeply offended! He has punished us; but He has been merciful too. He has taken our children because we did not deserve them. Oh, Herbert!

what will you do without them?--for you loved Janie so!” And then for a little while the childless parents could only hold each other's hands and weep, for to Herbert Cheyne the grief was new, and at the sight of her husband's sorrow Magdalene's old wounds seemed to open and bleed afresh; only now--now she did not weep alone.

When Miss Mewlstone entered the room, shortly afterwards, she found Magdalene lying spent and weary, holding her husband's hand.

Joy had indeed returned to the White House, but for a long time it was joy that was strangely tempered with sorrow. Upstairs no sound greeted Herbert from the empty nurseries; there were no little feet pattering to meet the returned wanderer, no little voices to cry a joyous ”Father!” And for years the desolate mother had borne this sorrow alone.

As the days pa.s.sed on, Magdalene regained her strength slowly, but neither wife nor husband could hide from each other the fact that their health was broken by all they had gone through. Herbert's const.i.tution was sadly impaired for the remainder of his life: he knew well that he must carry with him the consequences of those years of suffering. Often he had to endure intense neuralgic agony in his limbs and head; an unhealed wound for a long time troubled him sorely.

Magdalene strove hard to regain strength, that she might devote herself to nurse him, but, though her const.i.tution was superb, she had much to bear from her disordered nerves. At times the old irritability was hard to vanquish; there were still dark moods of restlessness when her companions.h.i.+p was trying; but it was now that Herbert proved the n.o.bleness and reality of his repentance.