Barney's eyes dimmed. "How long has she been here?"
"Almost three weeks."
"But not like this?"
"No, sir; this is the result of the operation of yesterday."
"How long has she been ill?"
"Since the injury, sir, when the ship was torpedoed."
"What ship?"
"The ship that she was going back to France on, sir, last September to find you. The Gallantic."
"To find me?" Barney repeated dazedly. He had heard of the Gallantic, he knew, in some connection with himself or with Ethel Carew or with the Cullens, recently; but in the whirl of his passions, the name bore no near significance.
"Yes, sir. You see, Mr. Dick, she'd just got track of you at last. All your life, for twenty-three years, she'd been searching for you; and then—" Mrs. Wain stopped.
"Did she know last week—before the operation—where I was?"
"Oh, yes, sir."
"Why—why didn't she send—" he began, but he did not finish; he could not challenge his mother now. He had found her; so he went close once more beside her. He did not even look again at Mrs. Wain nor was he conscious longer of the presence of the nurse. He thought of himself as alone with his mother; indeed, after a few moments he was alone, for Mrs. Wain and the nurse withdrew. But they had passed far from Barney's perceptions.
Standing again beside his mother, he seemed to see her, not only as she was now, but as she had been when
