She had tried to find him, her David, and had been shown the dead, and the glory of the dead--all past and gone--her David's glory. Shown that long, empty gallery resounding with those aged footsteps, and the pictures--pictures--pictures--of men and women who had once been babes like her little son and David's, now dead and gone--not one soul among them all to greet her. Proud lords and dames in frames of gold; young men and maidens in costly silks and velvets of marvellous dyes, red-cheeked, red-lipped, and soullessly silent; and she, alone and undefended in their midst, holding in her arms their last descendant. All those painted fingers seemed lifted to point at her; those silent red lips parted to cry out at her, "Look at this stranger claiming to be one of us; send her away." And David--her David--was one of these! What they had felt--what they had thought and striven for--was it all intensified and concentrated in him? Oh, if her soul could only reach to him, wherever he was, and penetrate this impalpable veil that stretched between them! If her hands could only touch him, her eyes look into his and see what lay in their depths for her! Then her babe stirred and tossed up his pretty hands, waking her from her sad, vision-seeing trance. He opened his large, clear eyes, and suddenly it seemed that her wish was granted,--that the veil was rent and she was looking into David's eyes and seeing his soul free, no longer chained by invisible links to those dead and gone beings, and their traditions. This had been all a dream--a dream. She gathered the child in her arms and held him with his sweet, warm lips pressed to her breast and his soft little hand thrust in her bosom. David's little son--David's little son! Surely all was good and well with the world! Did not the old man say it was only gossip? Had not evil things been said of David even on her own mountain? It was the trail of the serpent of ill report. He had not confided his sacred secret to these people, and they had thought what they pleased. Surely he had told his mother about his wife. She would go to his mother and wait for his return, and there she would bring her precious gift--David's little son. Quickly she packed her few belongings and rang for a messenger, and as she stood an instant waiting for an answer to her ring, the white-capped nurse she had noticed in the morning passed by with the baby in her arms. Yes, surely women of David's state did not travel about alone. Had she not read in _Vanity Fair_ how Becky Sharp always had her maid? And now she was in "Vanity Fair," and must be wise and not go to David's mother unattended. Then, too, if only she had some one with her to whom she could speak now and then, it would be better. Therefore, without further consideration, she walked swiftly down the corridor after the tidy nurse.