Still,there was a hope.John told the hope first,before he ventured to speak of the missing ship,and even then had to break the news gently,for the mother had grown frail and weak,and could not bear things as she used to do.She clung as if they had been words of life or death to the ship-owner's postscript--"that they had no recollection of the name of Halifax;there might have been such a gentleman on board--they could not say.But it was not probable;for the 'Stars-and-Stripes'was a trading vessel,and had not good accommodation for passengers."Then came week after week--I know not how they went by--one never does,afterwards.At the time they were frightfully vivid,hour by hour;we rose each morning,sure that some hope would come in the course of the day;we went to bed at night,heavily,as if there were no such thing as hope in the world.Gradually,and I think that was the worst consciousness of all,our life of suspense became perfectly natural;and everything in and about the house went on as usual,just as though we knew quite well--what the Almighty Father alone knew!--where our poor lad was,and what had become of him.Or rather,as if we had settled in the certainty,which perhaps the end of our own lives alone would bring us,that he had slipped out of life altogether,and there was no such being as Guy Halifax under this pitiless sun.
The mother's heart was breaking.She made no moan,but we saw it in her face.One morning--it was the morning after John's birthday,which we had made a feint of keeping,with Grace Oldtower,the two little grandchildren,Edwin and Louise--she was absent at breakfast and dinner;she had not slept well,and was too tired to rise.Many days following it happened the same;with the same faint excuse,or with no excuse at all.How we missed her about the house!--ay,changed as she had been.How her husband wandered about,ghost-like,from room to room!--could not rest anywhere,or do anything.
Finally,he left our company altogether,and during the hours that he was at home rarely quitted for more than a few minutes the quiet bed-chamber,where,every time his foot entered it,the poor pale face looked up and smiled.
Ay,smiled;for I noticed,as many another may have done in similar cases,that when her physical health definitely gave way,her mental health returned.The heavy burthen was lighter;she grew more cheerful,more patient;seemed to submit herself to the Almighty will,whatever it might be.As she lay on her sofa in the study,where one or two evenings John carried her down,almost as easily as he used to carry little Muriel,his wife would rest content with her hand in his,listening to his reading,or quietly looking at him,as though her lost son's face,which a few weeks since she said haunted her continually,were now forgotten in his father's.Perhaps she thought the one she should soon see--while the other--"Phineas,"she whispered one day,when I was putting a shawl over her feet,or doing some other trifle that she thanked me for,--"Phineas,if anything happens to me,you will comfort John!"Then first I began seriously to contemplate a possibility,hitherto as impossible and undreamed of as that the moon should drop out of the height of heaven--What would the house be without the mother?