Page:Further Chronicles of Avonlea (1920).djvu/122

94. But still I could not go fast enough. And then the cry ceased, and I was there all alone on that terrible, cold, gray shore. I was so tired and I came home. But I wish I could have found him. Perhaps he does not know that I tried to. Perhaps he thinks his mother never listened to his call. Oh, I would not have him think that.”

“You have had a bad dream, dear,” I said. I tried to say it naturally; but it is hard for a man to speak naturally when he feels a mortal dread striking into his very vitals with its deadly chill.

“It was no dream,” she answered reproachfully. “I tell you I heard him calling me — me, his mother. What could I do but go to him? You cannot understand — you are only his father. It was not you who gave him birth. It was not you who paid the price of his dear life in pain. He would not call to you — he wanted his mother.”

I got her back to the house and to her bed, whither she went obediently enough, and soon fell into the sleep of exhaustion. But there was no more sleep for me that night. I kept a grim vigil with dread.

When I had married Josephine, one of those officious relatives that are apt to buzz about a man's marriage told me that her grandmother had been insane all the latter part of her life. She had grieved over the death of a favorite child until she lost her