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THE RETURN.
The day came. It was fine in London. The invalid was carefully wrapt up
for the journey. Hester, the major and Miss Dasomma followed the young
couple to the station. There the latter received the poor little wife,
and when the train was out of sight, took her home with her. The major
who got into the next carriage, at every stop ran to see if anything was
wanted; and when they reached the station got on the box of the carriage
the mother had sent to meet them. Thus Hester bore her lost sheep
home--in little triumph and much anxiety. When they stopped at the door
no one was on the outlook for them. The hall was not lighted and the
door was locked. The major rang the bell. Ere the door was opened Hester
had got down and stood waiting. The major took the youth in his arms and
carried him into the dining-room, so weary that he could scarcely open
his eyes. There seemed no light in the house, except the candle the man
brought when he came to open the door. Corney begged to be put to bed.
"I wish Amy was here!" he murmured. Hester and the major were talking
together.
She hurried from the room and returned in a moment.
"I was sure of it," she whispered to the major. "There is a glorious
fire in his room, and everything ready for him. The house is my father,
but the room is my mother, and my mother is God."
The major took him again, and carried him up the stair--so thin and
light was he. The moment they were past the door of her room, out came
the mother behind them in her dressing gown, and glided pale and
noiseless as the disembodied after them. Hester looked round and saw
her, but she laid her finger on her lips, and followed without a word.
When they were in the room, she came to the door, looked in, and watched
them, but did not enter. Cornelius did not open his eyes. The major laid
him down on the sofa near the fire. A gleam of it fell on his face. The
mother drew a sharp quick breath and pressed her hands against her
heart: there was his sin upon his face, branding him that men might know
him. But therewith came a fresh rush from the inexhaustible fountain of
mother-love. She would have taken him into her anew, with all his sin
and pain and sorrow, to clear away in herself brand and pollution, and
bear him anew--even as God bears our griefs, and carries our sorrows,
destroys our wrongs, taking their consequences on himself, and gives us
the new birth from above. Her whole wounded heart seemed to go out to
him in one trembling sigh, as she turned to go back to the room where
her husband sat with hopeless gaze fixed on the fire. She had but
strength to reach the side of the bed, and fell senseless upon it. He
started up with a sting of self-accusation: he had killed her, exacting
from her a promise that by no word would she welcome the wanderer that
night. For she would not have her husband imagine in his bitterness that
she loved the erring son more than the father whose heart he had all but
broken, and had promised. She was, in truth, nearly as anxious about the
one as the other, for was not the unforgivingness of the one as bad--was
it not even worse than the theft of the other.
He lifted her, laid her on the bed, and proceeded to administer the
restoratives he now knew better than any other how to employ. In a
little while he was relieved, her eyelids began to tremble. "My baby!"
she murmured, and the tears began to flow.
"Thank God!" he said, and got her to bed.
But strange to say, for all his stern fulfilment of duty, he did not
feel fit to lie down by his wife. He would watch: she might have another
bad turn!
From the exhaustion that followed excess of feeling, she slept. He sat
watchful by the fire. She was his only friend, he said, and now she and
he were no more of one mind! Never until now had they had difference!
Hester and the major got Corney to bed, and instantly he was fast
asleep. The major arranged himself to pass the night by the fire, and
Hester went to see what she could do for her mother. Knocking softly at
the door and receiving no answer, she peeped in: there sat her father
and there slept her mother: she would not disturb them, but, taking her
share in the punishment of him she had brought home, retire without
welcome or good-night. She too was presently fast asleep. There was no
gnawing worm of duty undone or wrong unpardoned in her bosom to keep her
awake. Sorrow is sleepy, pride and remorse are wakeful.
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