'It is shaped like a hand,' I said dreamily, and then came the picture of Winifred in the churchyard singing, and pointing to just such a golden cloud, and then came the picture of Tom Wynne reeling towards us from the church porch, and then came everything in connection with him and with her; everything down to the very last words which I had spoken about her to my mother before unconsciousness had come upon me. But what I did _not_ know--what I was now burning to know without delay--was what time had passed since then.
I called out 'Mother!' A nurse, who was sitting in the room, but hidden from me by a large carved and corniced oak wardrobe, sprang up and told me that she would go and fetch my mother.
'Mother,' I said, when she entered the room, 'you've been?'
'Yes,' said she, taking a seat by my bedside, and motioning the nurse to leave us.
'More than in time,' said she. 'There was nothing to do. I have realised, however, that your extraordinary and horrible story was true. It was not a fever-dream. The tomb has been desecrated.'
'But, mother, you went as you promised to the sands in Church Cove, and you waited for the ebb of the tide?'
'But how many days have passed, mother? How many days have I been lying here?'
'And no sign of--of the body was to be seen?'
'None. The wretch must have been buried for ever beneath the great mass of the fallen cliff. I went no more.'
'Oh, mother, you should have gone every day. Think of the frightful risk, mother. On the very day after you ceased your visits the body might have been turned up by the tide, and she might have gone and seen it.'
The picture was too terrible. I fell back exhausted. I revived, however, in a somewhat calmer mood. When my mother came into the room again, I returned at once to the subject. I reproached her bitterly for not having gone every day. She listened to my reproaches in entire calmness.
'It was idle to keep repeating these visits every day,' said she, 'and I consider that I have fully performed my part of the compact. I expect you to fulfil yours.'
I remained silent, preparing for a deadly struggle with the only being on earth I had ever really feared.
'I have fully kept my word, Henry,' said she, 'and have done for you more than my duty to your father's memory warranted me in doing.'