hispered--"no pain at all; it is taken away. I
am only sorry for my boy. What will he do when I am gone? Where are you,
Martin?"

"I am here, mother!" I answered--"close to you. O God! I would go with
you if I could."

Then she lay still for a time, pressing my arm about her with her feeble
fingers. Would she speak to me no more? Had the dearest voice in the
world gone away altogether into that far-off, and, to us, silent country
whither the dying go? Dumb, blind, deaf to _me_? She was breathing yet,
and her heart fluttered faintly against my arm. Would not my mother know
me again?

"O Martin!" she murmured, "there is great love in store for us all! I
did not know how great the love was till now!"

There had been a quicker, more irregular throbbing of her heart as she
spoke. Then--I waited, but there came no other pulsation. Suddenly I
felt as if I also must be dying, for I passed into a state of utter
darkness and unconsciousness.

CHAPTER THE THIRTY-FOURTH.

A DISCONSOLATE WIDOWER.

My senses returned painfully, with a dull and blunted perception that
some great calamity had overtaken me. I was in my mother's
dressing-room, and Julia was holding to my nostrils some sharp essence,
which had penetrated to the brain and brought back consciousness. My
father was sitting by the empty grate, sobbing and weeping vehemently.
The door into my mother's bedroom was closed. I knew instantly what was
going on there.

I suppose no man ever fainted without being ashamed of it. Even in the
agony of my awakening consciousness I felt the inevitable sting of shame
at my weakness and womanishness. I pushed away Julia's hand, and raised
myself. I got up on my feet and walked unsteadily and blindly toward the
shut door.

"Martin," said Julia, "you must not go back there. It is all over."

I heard my father calling me in a broken voice, and I turned to him. His
frame was shaken by the violence of his sobs, and he could not lift up
his head from his hands. There was no effort at self-control about him.
At times his cries grew loud enough to be heard all over the house.

"Oh, my son!" he said, "we shall never see any one like your poor mother
again! She was the best wife any man ever had! Oh, what a loss she is to
me!"

I could not speak of her just then, nor could I say a word to comfort
him. She had bidden me be patient with him, but already I found the task
almost beyond me. I told Julia I was going up to my own roo