is brain for
a moment; then he thought of his father; but every train of reflection
dissolved almost as soon as it was formed, and he came back again and
again to his mother's face.

It was perfectly peaceful and strangely young-looking, as if the cool,
soothing hand of death, which presently would quiet all trouble for
her, had been already at work there erasing the marks that the years had
graven upon it. And yet it was not so much young as ageless; it seemed
to have passed beyond the register and limitations of time. Sometimes
for a moment it was like the face of a stranger, and then suddenly it
would become beloved and familiar again. It was just so she had looked
when she came so timidly into his room one night at Ashbridge, asking
him if it would be troublesome to him if she sat and talked with him for
a little. The mouth was a little parted for her slow, even breathing;
the corners of it smiled; and yet he was not sure if they smiled. It
was hard to tell, for she lay there quite flat, without pillows, and he
looked at her from an unusual angle. Sometimes he felt as if he had been
sitting there watching for uncounted years; and then again the hours
that he had been here appeared to have lasted but for a moment, as if he
had but looked once at her.

As the day declined the breeze of evening awoke, rattling the blind. By
now the sun had swung farther west, and the nurse pulled the blind up.
Outside in the bushes in the garden the call of birds to each other had
begun, and a thrush came close to the window and sang a liquid
phrase, and then repeated it. Michael glanced there and saw the bird,
speckle-breasted, with throat that throbbed with the notes; and then,
looking back to the bed, he saw that his mother's eyes were open.

She looked vaguely about the room for a moment, as if she had awoke from
some deep sleep and found herself in an unfamiliar place. Then, turning
her head slightly, she saw him, and there was no longer any question
as to whether her mouth smiled, for all her face was flooded with deep,
serene joy.

He bent towards her and her lips parted.

"Michael, my dear," she said gently.

Michael heard the rustle of the nurse's dress as she got up and came to
the bedside. He slipped from his chair on to his knees, so that his face
was near his mother's. He felt in his heart that the moment he had so
longed for was to be granted him, that she had come back to him, not
only as he had known her during t