Henry's hand, gave a promise of coming, and a message
of love to the prisoner, tried to say something more, but broke down,
and let Tom lead him away.

CHAPTER XV

Under the shroud
Of His thunder-cloud
Lie we still when His voice is loud,
And our hearts shall feel
The love notes steal,
As a bird sings after the thunder peal--C. F. A.

Not till dusk could Dr. May get back to Stoneborough, and then, in an
evening gleam of that stormy day, he was met at the gate of Bankside by
Richard and Ethel.

'You need not come in, papa,' said Ethel. 'She is asleep. She knows.'

Dr. May sighed with unspeakable relief.

'Mr. Bramshaw telegraphed, and his clerk came down. It was not so very
bad! She saw it in our faces, and she was so worn out with talking and
watching, that--that the very turning her face to the wall with hope
over, became sleep almost directly.'

'That is well,' murmured the Doctor. 'And can you be spared, my dear?
If you could come I should be glad, for poor Aubrey is quite done up.'

'I can come. Mary is with her, and Richard will stay to meet Henry, if
he is coming home, or to send up if they want you; but I think she will
not wake for many hours; and then--oh! what can any one do!'

So Richard turned back to the sorrowful house; and Dr. May, tenderly
drawing Ethel's arm into his own, told her, as they walked back, the
few incidents that she most wanted to hear, as best he could narrate
them. 'You have had a heart-rending day, my dear,' he said; 'you and
Mary, as well as the rest of us.'

'There was one comfort!' said Ethel, 'and that was his own notes. Ave
has all that he has written to her from Whitford under her pillow, and
she kept spreading them out, and making us read them, and--oh! their
braveness and cheeriness--they did quite seem to hold one up! And then
poor little Minna's constant little robin-chirp of faith, "God will not
let them hurt him." One could not bear to tell the child, that though
indeed they cannot hurt him, it may not be in her sense! Look here!
These are her slippers. She has worked on all day to finish them, that
they might be done and out of sight when he came home this evening.
The last stitch was done as Richard came in; and now I thought I could
only take them out of every one's sight.'

'Poor things! poor things! And how was it with the child when she
heard?'

'The old sweet note,' said Ethel, less steadily than she had