CHAPTER 6

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_ Daily the child sank lower and steadily lower towards the grave,
and daily the sorrowing old watchers carried gilded tidings of her
radiant health and loveliness to the happy mother, whose pilgrimage
was also now nearing its end. And daily they forged loving and cheery
notes in the child's hand, and stood by with remorseful consciences
and bleeding hearts, and wept to see the grateful mother devour
them and adore them and treasure them away as things beyond price,
because of their sweet source, and sacred because her child's hand
had touched them.

At last came that kindly friend who brings healing and peace to all.
The lights were burning low. In the solemn hush which precedes the
dawn vague figures flitted soundless along the dim hall and gathered
silent and awed in Helen's chamber, and grouped themselves about
her bed, for a warning had gone forth, and they knew. The dying
girl lay with closed lids, and unconscious, the drapery upon her
breast faintly rising and falling as her wasting life ebbed away.
At intervals a sigh or a muffled sob broke upon the stillness.
The same haunting thought was in all minds there: the pity of
this death, the going out into the great darkness, and the mother
not here to help and hearten and bless.

Helen stirred; her hands began to grope wistfully about as if they
sought something--she had been blind some hours. The end was come;
all knew it. With a great sob Hester gathered her to her breast,
crying, "Oh, my child, my darling!" A rapturous light broke in the
dying girl's face, for it was mercifully vouchsafed her to mistake
those sheltering arms for another's; and she went to her rest murmuring,
"Oh, mamma, I am so happy--I longed for you--now I can die."

Two hours later Hester made her report. The mother asked:

"How is it with the child?"

"She is well." _

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