Page:Resurrection Rock (1920).pdf/386

 Gallantic was torpedoed, she was brought to London apparently injured fatally.

She had been grouped with the injured from another vessel, torpedoed at the same time, and consequently had been wrongly identified. But she was unaware of this, until after several days she was able to send for Marcellus Clarke, who was in England. From him she learned that her husband was dead and buried, and that his uncle was claiming all the family properties.

As she had previously drawn a will in favor of her son, in case her husband did not survive her, she now had her survivorship proved to protect Barney's interest, if she died; but she withheld from announcement the fact that she was alive.

"I don't think I then knew why, Ethel," this strange motherly cousin Agnes was saying. "I just did; perhaps I realized that I might accomplish more, as dead, than I had living. But I wasn't thinking a great deal about other people. Mr. Clarke told me that he," she looked toward her son whose hand she clasped, "was in London; he'd been wounded again. I thought I had to send for him; but—"

"She didn't," Barney helped her out, "because she was in such bad shape that she thought I shouldn't see her, when I was hurt, myself."

"And I knew they were going to send you to fight again! My boy, how could I know how you'd been thinking of your mother? How could I want you to carry me in your mind as I was then? Besides, the doctors thought I was about to die; I did not see how I could bear having you for once and—go. So I tried to arrange some way to be with you always, now that I'd found you, whether I was living or dead, and have influence in your life.