In that moment the mother's love pleaded for painful
consciousness rather than oblivion- pleaded to be left in aching
weariness, rather than to have the encircling arms benumbed so that
they could not feel the dear burden. In another moment Molly had flung
something away, but it was not the black remnant- it was an empty
phial. And she walked on again under the breaking cloud, from which
there came now and then the light of a quickly-veiled star, for a
freezing wind had sprung up since the snowing had ceased. But she
walked always more and more drowsily, and clutched more and more
automatically the sleeping child at her bosom.
Slowly the demon was working his will, and cold and weariness
were his helpers. Soon she felt nothing but a supreme immediate
longing that curtained off all futurity- the longing to lie down and
sleep. She had arrived at a spot where her footsteps were no longer
checked by a hedgerow, and she had wandered vaguely, unable to
distinguish any objects, notwithstanding the wide whiteness around
her, and the growing starlight. She sank down against a straggling
furze bush, an easy pillow enough; and the bed of snow, too, was soft.
She did not feel that the bed was cold, and did not heed whether the
child would wake and cry for her. But her arms did not yet relax their
instinctive clutch; and the little one slumbered on as gently as if it
had been rocked in a lace-trimmed cradle.
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