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She knew there was no danger of the Little Mother being aroused, for she was listening at the bedroom door and had heard her go out; she had only the aged Delmia to fear. There was no need for alarm; Delmia had not heard. The rays from the gas-lamp cast yellow flickering shadows on the lane and the side of the old brick house, and at intervals upon the crouching figure.
In the blackness Delmia feebly groped her way to her sister's side, and throwing her shrunken arms about her, tried to win her back to consciousness by childishly calling her endearing names. While Delmia called to her sister in the darkness, the storm without continued to rage.
The sodden, pitiful figure in the door seemed not to have seen her. "Ovide! Ovide!" she called brokenly, staring blankly around the room. At last Delmia reached her side. Very gently she drew her into the house and closed the door. "Has Ovide not come, then?" she asked again, as she sank on the crazy rocking-chair. "Is Ovide coming?" asked her sister, wonderingly.
But we must go and see her; she has been asleep so long." The Little Mother sped across the room in the direction of the bedroom, holding above her head the flaring lamp, Delmia hobbling after her. As she eagerly entered Marie's room, and the light fell across the bed, she uttered a cry of deep dismay. The bed had not been disturbed.
"Yes, yes," Delmia rambled on, "my hearing is very bad now." Presently she stopped, leaned her head toward the door and listened again. "Marie sleeps soundly," she said with a tired, contented sigh. Poor Delmia!
If Ovide only knew how she suffers, it would kill him." Turning with hand on the door she added earnestly, "If you hear the slightest noise in the room, Delmia, go and soothe her, and tell her I won't be long." "Had you not better open the door now, and look at her? She has been asleep so long," answered Delmia, uneasily. "No! no! Delmia; we might disturb her."
She was now in the little bedroom which had been Ovide's since he was a boy, but which he had not slept in for six months and would never sleep in again. Delmia turned her dimmed eyes in the direction of the room and said with a sigh of relief: "Marie seems to be sleeping well, sister!"
The next moment the door opened, a gust of cold air swept into the room and she was gone. If she only had glanced into the room to see if Marie was sleeping! The storm had grown more violent, and great clouds, ominous with rain, were now overcasting the sky. Her sister could hardly have reached the corner of the street, when Delmia thought she heard a slight noise in the bedroom.
The Little Mother let the shawl she was drawing around her shoulders fall to the floor, as she heard the question, and walking over to her venerable sister, said excitedly, as she grasped her by the arm: "Have you not heard, Delmia, of the wonderful answers to prayer that the Virgin has given in the Bonsecours Church? Only yesterday two more miracles were reported.
You, too, are old, and it is a long way to the Bonsecours Church. I fear the storm will be too much for you." "But think, dear," replied her sister, commiseratingly, "how our poor nephew will be thinking of us in that dreadful place, and think, too, of her who was this day to have been his wife. They both sorely need my prayers this night. I must I must go, Delmia."
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