Part 73 (2/2)

'Much more. I have heard things from him to-night that are a revelation to me. Well, he has come through, and I believe he is recovering it; but the three threads of our being have all had a terrible wrench, and if body and mind come out unscathed, it is the soundness of the spirit that has brought them through.'

A sleepless night and morning of violent pain ensued; but, at least thus much had been gained--that there was no refusal of sympathy, but a grateful acceptance of kindness, so that it almost seemed a recurrence to the Coombe days; and as the pain lessened, the enjoyment of Ethel's attendance seemed to grow upon Leonard in the gentle languor of relief; and when, as she was going out for the afternoon, she came back to see if he was comfortable in his easy-chair by the drawing-room fire, and put a screen before his face, he looked up and thanked her with a smile--the first she had seen.

When she returned, the winter twilight had closed in, and he was leaning back in the same att.i.tude, but started up, so that she asked if he had been asleep.

'I don't know--I have seen her again.'

'Seen whom?'

'Minna, my dear little Minna!'

'Dreamt of her?'

'I cannot tell,' he said; 'I only know she was there; and then rising and standing beside Ethel, he continued--'Miss May, you remember the night of her death?'

'Easter Eve?'

'Well,' continued he, 'that night I saw her.'

'I remember,' said Ethel, 'that Mr. Wilmot told us you knew at once what he was come to tell you.'

'It was soon after I was in bed, the lights were out, and I do not think I was asleep, when she was by me--not the plump rosy thing she used to be, but tall and white, her hair short and waving back, her eyes--oh! so sad and wistful, but glad too--and her hands held out--and she said, ”Turn you to the stronghold, ye prisoners of hope. O Leonard, dear, it does not hurt.”'

'It was the last thing she did say.'

'Yes, so Ave's letter said. And observe, one o'clock in Indiana is half-past nine with us. Then her hair--I wrote to ask, for you know it used to be in long curls, but it had been cut short, like what I saw.

Surely, surely, it was the dear loving spirit allowed to show itself to me before going quite away to her home!'

'And you have seen her again?'

'Just now'--his voice was even lower than before--'since it grew dark, as I sat there. I had left off reading, and had been thinking, when there she was, all white but not wistful now; ”Leonard, dear,” she said, ”it has not hurt;” and then, ”He brought me forth, He brought me forth even to a place of liberty, because He had a favour unto me.”'

'O, Leonard, it must have made you very happy.'

'I am very thankful for it,' he said. Then after a pause, 'You will not speak of it--you will not tell me to think it the action of my own mind upon itself.'

'I can only believe it a great blessing come to comfort you and cheer you,' said Ethel: 'cheer you as with the robin-note, as papa called it, that sung all through the worst of times! Leonard, I am afraid you will think it unkind of me to have withheld it so long, but papa told me you could not yet bear to hear of Minna. I have her last present for you in charge--the slippers she was working for that eighteenth birthday of yours. She would go on, and we never knew whether she fully understood your danger; it was always ”they could not hurt you,”

and at last, when they were finished, and I had to make her understand that you could not have them, she only looked up to me and said, ”Please keep them, and give them to him when he comes home.” She never doubted, first or last.'

Ethel, who had daily been watching for the moment, took out the parcel from the drawer, with the address in the childish writing, the date in her own.

Large tears came dropping from Leonard's eyes, as he undid the paper, and looked at the work, then said, 'Last time I saw that pattern, my mother was working it! Dear child! Yes, Miss May, I am glad you did not give them to me before. I always felt as if my blow had glanced aside and fallen on Minna; but somehow I feel more fully how happy she is!'

'She was the messenger of comfort throughout to Ave and to Ella,' said Ethel, 'and well she may be to you still.'

'I have dreaded to ask,' said Leonard; 'but there was a line in one letter I was shown that made me believe that climate was not the whole cause.'

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