Angel Island

"How is she?" he panted.

"Alive," Clara said briefly.

He flew up the steps. Clara followed. Angela dropped to the sand and Jay

there, her little head in the crook of her elbow, sobbing.

Inside a murmur of relief greeted Billy. "He's come, Julia," Peachy

whispered softly.

The women withdrew from the inner room as Billy passed over the

threshold.

Julia lay on the couch stately and still. One long white hand rested on

her breast. The other stretched at her side; its fingers touched a

little bundle there. Her wings - the glorious pinions of her girlhood -

towered above the pillow, silver-shining, quiescent. Her honey-colored

hair piled in a huge crown above her brow. Her eyes were closed. Her

face was like marble; but for an occasional faint movement of the hand

at her side, she might have been the sculpture on a tomb.

Her lids flickered as Billy approached, opened on eyes as dull as

stones. But as they looked up into his, they filled with light.

"My husband - " she said. Her eyes closed.

But presently they opened and with a greater dazzle of light. "Our

son - " The hand at her side moved feebly on the little bundle there.

That faint movement seemed a great effort. Her eyes closed again.

But for a third time she opened them, and now they shone with their

greatest glory. "My husband - our son - has - wings."

And then Julia's eyes closed for the last time