mine. "Happier days are coming," I said; "you are _my_ care now."
There was no answer. She still trembled silently, and that was
all.

In less than five minutes the boy returned, and earned his
promised reward. He sat on the floor by the fire counting his
treasure, the one happy creature in the room. I soaked some
crumbled morsels of biscuit in the wine, and, little by little, I
revived her failing strength by nourishment administered at
intervals in that cautious form. After a while she raised her
head, and looked at me with wondering eyes that were pitiably
like the eyes of her child. A faint, delicate flush began to show
itself in her face. She spoke to me, for the first time, in
whispering tones that I could just hear as I sat close at her
side.

"How did you find me? Who showed you the way to this place?"

She paused; painfully recalling the memory of something that was
slow to come back. Her color deepened; she found the lost
remembrance, and looked at me with a timid curiosity. "What
brought you here?" she asked. "Was it my dream?"

"Wait, dearest, till you are stronger, and I will tell you all."

I lifted her gently, and laid her on the wretched bed. The child
followed us, and climbing to the bedstead with my help, nestled
at her mother's side. I sent the boy away to tell the mistress of
the house that I should remain with my patient, watching her
progress toward recovery, through the night. He went out,
jingling his money joyfully in his pocket. We three were left
together.

As the long hours followed each other, she fell at intervals into
a broken sleep; waking with a start, and looking at me wildly as
if I had been a stranger at her bedside. Toward morning the
nourishment which I still carefully administered wrought its
healthful change in her pulse, and composed her to quieter
slumbers. When the sun rose she was sleeping as peacefully as the
child at her side. I was able to leave her, until my return later
in the day, under the care of the woman of the house. The magic
of money transformed this termagant and terrible person into a
docile and attentive nurse--so eager to follow my instructions
exactly that she begged me to commit them to writing before I
went away. For a moment I still lingered alone at the bedside of
the sleeping woman, and satisfied myself for the hundredth time
that her life was safe, before I left her. It was the sweetest of
all rewards to feel sure of this--to touch her cool forehead
lightly with my lips--to look, and look again, at the poor worn
face, always dear, always beautiful, to _my_ eyes. change as it
might. I closed the door softly and went out in the bright
morning, a happy man again. So close together rise the springs of
joy and sorrow in human life! So near in our heart, as in our
heaven, is the brightest sunshine to the blackest cloud!

CHAPTER XXVI.

CONVERSATION WITH MY MOTHER.

I REACHED my own house in time to snatch two or three hours of
repose, before I paid my customary morning visit to my mother in
her own room. I observed, in her reception of me on this
occasion, certain peculiarities of look and manner which were far
from being familiar in my experience of her.

When our eyes first met, she regarded me with a wistful,
questioning look, as if she were troubled by some doubt which she
shrunk from expressing in words. And when I inquired after her
health, as usual, she surprised me by answering as impatiently as
if she resented my having mentioned the subject. For a moment, I
was inclined to think these changes signified that she had
discovered my absence from home during the night, and that she
had some suspicion of the true cause of it. But she never
alluded, even in the most distant manner, to Mrs. Van Brandt; and
not a word dropped from her lips which implied, directly or
indirectly, that I had pained or disappointed her. I could only
conclude that she had something important to say in relation to
herself or to me--and that for reasons of her own she unwillingly
abstained from giving expression to it at that time.

Reverting to our ordinary topics of conversation, we touched on
the subject (always interesting to my mother) of my visit to
Shetland. Speaking of this, we naturally spoke also of Miss
Dunross. Here, again, when I least expected it, there was another
surprise in store for me.

"You were talking the other day," said my mother, "of the green
flag which poor Dermody's daughter worked for you, when you were
both children. Have you really kept it all this time?"

"Yes."

"Where have you left it? In Scotland?"

"I have brought it with me to London."

"Why?"

"I promised Miss Dunross to take the green flag with me, wherever
I might go."


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