Rosamond was still speaking on these topics, her mother was still listening to her with growing interest in every word that she said, when Uncle Joseph returned. He brought in with him a basket of flowers and a basket of fruit, which he held up in triumph at the foot of his niece's bed.
"I have been walking about, my child, in the fine bright sunshine," he said, "and waiting to give your face plenty of time to look happy, so that I might see it again as I want to see it always, for the rest of my life. Aha, Sarah! it is I who have brought the right doctor to cure you!" he added gayly, looking at Rosamond. "She has made you better already. Wait but a little while longer, and she shall get you up from your bed again, with your two cheeks as red, and your heart as light, and your tongue as fast to chatter as mine. See the fine flowers and the fruit I have bought that is nice to your eyes, and nice to your nose, and nicest of all to put into your mouth! It is festival-time with us to-day, and we must make the room bright, bright, bright, all over. And then, there is your dinner to come soon; I have seen it on the dish--a cherub among chicken-fowls! And, after that, there is your fine sound sleep, with Mozart to sing the cradle song, and with me to sit for watch, and to go downstairs when you wake up again, and fetch your cup of tea. Ah, my child, my child, what a fine thing it is to have come at last to this festival-day!"
With a bright look at Rosamond, and with both his hands full of flowers, he turned away from his niece to begin decorating the room. Except when she thanked the old man for the presents he had brought, her attention had never wandered, all the while he had been speaking, from her daughters face; and her first words, when he was silent again, were addressed to Rosamond alone.
"While I am happy with my child," she said, "I am keeping you from yours. I, of all persons, ought to be the last to part you from each other too long. Go back now, my love, to your husband and your child; and leave me to my grateful thoughts and my dreams of better times."
"If you please, answer Yes to that, for your mother's sake," said Uncle Joseph, before Rosamond could reply. "The doctor says she must take her repose in the day as well as her repose in the night. And how shall I get her to close her eyes, so long as she has the temptation to keep them open upon you?"
Rosamond felt the truth of those last words, and consented to go back for a few hours to the hotel, on the understanding that she was to resume her place at the bedside in the evening. After making this arrangement, she waited long enough in the room to see the meal brought up which Uncle Joseph had announced, and to aid the old man in encouraging her mother to partake of it. When the tray had been removed, and when the pillows of the bed had been comfortably arranged by her own hands, she at last prevailed on herself to take leave.
Her mother's arms lingered round her neck; her mothers cheek nestled fondly against hers. "Go, my dear, go now, or I shall get too selfish to part with you even for a few hours," murmured the sweet voice, in the lowest, softest tones. "My own Rosamond! I have no words to bless you that are good enough; no words to thank you that will speak as gratefully for me as they ought! Happiness has been long in reaching me--but, oh, how mercifully it has come at last!"
Before she passed the door, Rosamond stopped and looked back into the room. The table, the mantel-piece, the little framed prints on the wall were bright with flowers; the musical box was just playing the first sweet notes of the air from Mozart; Uncle Joseph was seated already in his accustomed place by the bed, with the basket of fruit on his knees; the pale, worn face on the pillow was tenderly lighted up by a smile; peace and comfort and repose, all mingled together happily in the picture of the sick-room, all joined in leading Rosamond's thoughts to dwell quietly on the hope of a happier time.
Three hours passed. The last glory of the sun was lighting the long summer day to its rest in the western heaven, when Rosamond returned to her mother's bedside.
She entered the room softly. The one window in it looked toward the west, and on that side of the bed the chair was placed which Uncle Joseph had occupied when she left him, and in which she now found him still seated on her return. He raised his fingers to his lips, and looked toward the bed, as she opened the door. Her mother was asleep, with her hand resting in the hand of the old man.
As Rosamond noiselessly advanced, she saw that Uncle Joseph's eyes looked dim and weary. The constraint of the position that he occupied, which made it impossible for him to move without the risk of awakening his niece, seemed to be beginning to fatigue him. Rosamond removed her bonnet and shawl, and made a sign to him to rise and let her take his place.
"Yes, yes!" she whispered, seeing him reply by a shake of the head. "Let me take my turn, while you go out a little and enjoy the cool evening air. There is no fear of waking her; her hand is not clasping yours, but only resting in it--let me steal mine into its place gently, and we shall not disturb her."
She slipped her hand under her mother's while she spoke. Uncle Joseph smiled as he rose from his chair, and resigned his place to her. "You will have your way," he said; "you are too quick and sharp for an old man like me."
"Has she been long asleep?" asked Rosamond.
"Nearly two hours," answered Uncle Joseph. "But it has not been the good sleep I wanted for her--a dreaming, talking, restless sleep. It is only ten little minutes since she has been so quiet as you see her now."
"Surely you let in too much light?" whispered Rosamond, looking round at the window, through which the glow of the evening sky poured warmly into the room.
"No, no!" he hastily rejoined. "Asleep or awake, she always wants the light. If I go away for a little while, as you tell me, and if it gets on to be dusk before I come back, light both those candles on the chimney-piece. I shall try to be here again before that; but if the time slips by too fast for me, and if it so happens that she wakes and talks strangely, and looks much away from you into that far corner of the room there, remember that the matches and the candles are together on the chimney-piece, and that the sooner you light them after the dim twilight-time, the better it will be." With those words he stole on tiptoe to the door and went out.
His parting directions recalled Rosamond to a remembrance of what had passed between the doctor and herself that morning. She looked round again anxiously to the window.
The sun was just sinking beyond the distant house-tops; the close of day was not far off.
As she turned her head once more toward the bed, a momentary chill crept over her. She trembled a little, partly at the sensation itself, partly at the recollection it aroused of that other chill which had struck her in the solitude of the Myrtle Room.
Stirred by the mysterious sympathies of touch, her mother's hand at the same instant moved in hers, and over the sad peacefulness of the weary face there fluttered a momentary trouble--the flying shadow of a dream. The pale, parted lips opened, closed, quivered, opened again; the toiling breath came and went quickly and more quickly; the head moved uneasily on the pillow; the eyelids half unclosed themselves; low, faint, moaning sounds poured rapidly from the lips--changed ere long to half-articulated sentences--then merged softly into intelligible speech, and uttered these words: "Swear that you will not destroy this paper! Swear that you will not take this paper away with you if you leave the house!"
The words that followed these were whispered so rapidly and so low that Rosamond's ear failed to catch them. They were followed by a short silence. Then the dreaming voice spoke again suddenly, and spoke louder.
"Where? where? where?" it said. "In the book-case? In the table-drawer?--Stop! stop! In the picture of the ghost--"
The last words struck cold on Rosamond's heart.