"Miss Marvyn fainted dead away;--she stood it till he came to _that_; but then she just clapped both hands together, as if she'd been shot, and fell right forward on the floor in a faint!"
What could this be? There was a quick, intense whirl of thoughts in Mary's mind, and then came one of those awful moments when the powers of life seem to make a dead pause and all things stand still; and then all seemed to fail under her, and the life to sink down, down, down, till nothing was but one dim, vague, miserable consciousness.
Mrs. Scudder and Miss Prissy were sitting, talking earnestly, on the foot of the bed, when the door opened noiselessly, and Mary glided to them like a spirit,--no color in check or lip,--her blue eyes wide with calm horror; and laying her little hand, with a nervous grasp, on Miss Prissy's arm, she said,--
"Tell me,--what is it?--is it?--is he--dead?"
The two women looked at each other, and then Mrs. Scudder opened her arms.
Then fell that long, hopeless silence, broken only by hysteric sobs from Miss Prissy, and answering ones from the mother; but _she_ lay still and quiet, her blue eyes wide and clear, making an inarticulate moan.
"Oh! are they _sure_?--_can_ it be?--_is_ he dead?" at last she gasped.
"My child, it is too true; all we can say is, 'Be still, and know that I am God!'"
"I shall _try_ to be still, mother," said Mary, with a piteous, hopeless voice, like the bleat of a dying lamb; "but I did not think he _could_ die! I never thought of that!--I never _thought_ of it!--Oh! mother! mother! mother! oh! what shall I do?"
They laid her on her mother's bed,--the first and last resting-place of broken hearts,--and the mother sat down by her in silence. Miss Prissy stole away into the Doctor's study, and told him all that had happened.
"It's the same to her," said Miss Prissy, with womanly reserve, "as if he'd been an own brother."
"What was his spiritual state?" said the Doctor, musingly.
Miss Prissy looked blank, and answered mournfully,--
The Doctor entered the room where Mary was lying with closed eyes. Those few moments seemed to have done the work of years,--so pale, and faded, and sunken she looked; nothing but the painful flutter of the eyelids and lips showed that she yet breathed. At a sign from Mrs. Scudder, he kneeled by the bed, and began to pray,--"Lord, thou hast been our dwelling-place in all generations,"--prayer deep, mournful, upheaving like the swell of the ocean, surging upward, under the pressure of mighty sorrows, towards an Almighty heart.
