thing can
hurt me now. I cannot suffer any more, because I am bruised and beaten
to numbness. I want to see you alone; I want to know everything."

At sight of her, the old woman darted forward and caught the tall,
wasted, tottering form in her strong arms. Lifting her as though she
had been a child, she bore her back to her small bleak room, laid her
softly on her cot, then knelt down, and burst into a fit of passionate
crying.

As if to shut out some torturing vision, Beryl clasped her hands over
her eyes, and when she spoke, her voice was very unsteady:

"Did you see mother alive?"

"Oh, honey, I was too late! I was three days too late to see her at
all. When I got to New York, and found the Doctor's house, he was not
at home; had just gone to Boston a half hour before I rung the bell.
His folks couldn't tell me nothin', so I had to wait two days. When I
give him your note, he looked dreadful cut up, and tole me Miss Ellie
had all the care and 'tention in the world, but nothin' couldn't save
her. He said she didn't suffer much, but was 'lirious all the time,
until the day before she died, when all of a sudden her mind cleared.
Then she axed for you, honey--God bless you, my poor lamb! I hate to
harrify your heart. The Doctor comforted her all he could, and tole her
bizness of importance had done kept you South. Miss Ellie axed how long
she could live; he said only a few hours. She begged him to prop her
up, so she could write a few words. He says he held the paper for her,
and she wrote a little, and rested; and then she wrote a little mere
and fell back speechless. He pat the piece of paper in a invellop and
sealed it, and axed her if she wished it given to her daughter Beryl.
She couldn't talk then, but she looked at him and nodded her head. That
was about four o'clock in the evening of Tuesday. She had a sort of
spasm, and went to sleep. At two o'clock, she woke up in Heaven. He
said he felt so sorry for you--dear lamb! He wouldn't let them burry
her where most was hurried that died in the hospital. He had her laid
away in his own lot in some graveyard, where his childun was burried,
'till he could hear from you. He tole me, she was tenderly handled, and
everything was done as you would have wanted it; and he cut off some of
the beautiful hair--and--"

Dyce smothered her sobs in the bedclothes, but Beryl lay like a stone
image.

"Oh, honey! It jest splits my heart in two, to tell you all this--"

"Go on,