He had
receded with all the rest of the world into the far, far distance that
lay behind her. He had no place in this region of many shadows where
these others so tenderly guided her wandering feet. No one else had any
place there save old Biddy who, being never absent, seemed a part of the
atmosphere, and the doctor who came and went like a presiding genie in
that waste of desolation.
She did not welcome his visits, although he was invariably kind, for on
one occasion she caught a low murmur from him to the effect that her
mother had better come to her, and this suggestion had thrown her into a
most painful state of apprehension. She had implored them weeping to let
her mother stay away, and they had hushed her with soothing promises; but
she never saw the doctor thereafter without a nervous dread that she
might also see her mother's gaunt figure accompanying him. And she was
sure--quite sure--that her mother would be very angry with her when she
saw her helplessness.
Nightmares of her mother's advent began to trouble her. She would start
up in anguish of soul, scarcely believing in the soothing arms that held
her till their tenderness hushed her back to calmness.
"No one can come to you, sweetheart, while I am here." How often she
heard the low words murmured lovingly over her head! "See, I am holding
you! You are quite safe. No one can take you from me.
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