remember his duty towards him; and if the lad ever again spoke bitterly of one whom he had never yet seen, she on her part would chide him, and the light of revenge that had sometimes flashed in his brilliant blue eyes would fade away, and in uplooking and affection he would walk as a son with his father's hand.
Thus in the riot of her woman's heart hope fought with fear and love with hate. And at last the brother of Patriksen did indeed disappear. Rumour whispered that he had returned to the Westmann Islands, there to settle for the rest of his days and travel the sea no more.
"Now he will come," thought Rachel. "Wherever he is, he will learn that there is no longer anything to fear, and he will return."
And she waited with as firm a hope that the winds would carry the word as Noah waited for the settling of the waters after the dove had found the dry land.
But time went on, and Stephen did not appear; and at length, under the turmoil of a heart that fought with itself, Rachel's health began to sink.
Then the brother of Patriksen returned. He had a message for her. He knew where her husband was. Stephen Orry was on the little Island of Man, far away south, in the Irish Sea. He had married again, and he had another child. His wife was dead, but his son was living.
Rachel in her weakness went to bed and rose from it no more. The broad dazzle of the sun that had been so soon to rise on her wasted life was shot over with an inky pall of cloud. Not for her was to be the voyage to England. Her boy must go alone.
It was the winter season in that stern land of the north, when night and day so closely commingle that the darkness seems never to lift. And in the silence of that long night Rachel lay in her little hut, sinking rapidly and much alone. Jason came to her from time to time, in his great sea-stockings and big gloves, and with the odour of the brine in his long red hair. By her bedside he would stand half an hour in silence, with eyes full of wonderment; for life like that of an untamed colt was in his own warm limbs, and death was very strange to him. A sudden hæmorrhage brought the end; and one day darker than the rest, when Jason hastened home from the boats, the pain and panting of death were there before him. His mother's pallid face lay on her arm, her great dark eyes were glazed already, she was breathing hard, and every breath was a spasm. Jason ran for the priest—the same that had
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