. At length the presence of her
mother by the bedside became a fact, and it led on to the thought of her
father. Her eyes moved in search for him.

The act of speech, in health a mere emphasis of thought, was only to be
attained by repetition of efforts; several times she believed herself to
have spoken whilst silence still pressed her lips. Only when the
recollection of her last waking day was complete, and when the absence
of her father from the room linked itself to memory of her anguished
waiting for him, did she succeed in uttering the words which represented
her fear. Her mother was bending over her, aware of the new light in her
questioning eyes.

'Where's father?' Emily asked.

'You shall see him, dear,' was the reply. 'Don't speak.'

'He came home?'

'Yes, he came home.'

Emily fell back into thought; this great fear allayed, the only now,
like an angel coming from afar over dark waters, past continued to
rebuild itself within her mind. And now, there gleamed the image of her
love. It had been expelled from memory by the all-possessing woe of
those last hours; it returned like a soothing warmth, an assuagement of
pain. As though soul-easing music sounded about her, she again lost her
hold on outward things and sank into a natural sleep.

Mrs. Hood feared the next waking. The question about her father, she
attributed to Emily's incomplete command of her faculties, for she had
not doubted that the muffled figure on the couch had been consciously
seen by the girl and understood. Yet with waking the error prolonged
itself; it became evident at length that Emily knew nothing of her
coming down to the sitting-room, and still had to learn that her father
no longer lived. It was a new suffering under which the poor woman gave
way. Already her natural affliction was complicated with a sense of
painful mysteries; in her delirium, Emily had uttered words which there
was no explaining, but which proved that there had been some hidden
connection between her mental trouble and her father's failure to return
at the usual hour. Dagworthy's name she had spoken frequently, and with
words which called to mind the sum of money her father had somehow
procured. Mrs. Hood had no strength to face trials such as these. As
long as her child's life seemed in danger, she strove with a mother's
predominant instinct to defend it; but her powers failed as Emily passed
out of peril. Her outlook became blank; physical exhaustion joined