Page:Sologub Sweet Scented Name.djvu/141

 often saw before her a sweet yet terrible image of the little one.

Whenever she was alone and sitting quietly by herself, if she closed her eyes, the child came to her. She felt that she watched him grow. So vividly did she see him that at times it seemed to her that day after day and year after year she had lived with him as an actual mother with her living child. Her breasts were full of milk for him. At a sudden noise she trembled—perhaps the child had fallen and would be hurt.

Sometimes she put out her hand to stroke his soft, bright, golden curls, to touch his hand, to draw him nearer. But he always escaped her touch, her hand met empty air, and yet she heard his little laughing voice as if he were still near and hiding just behind her chair.

She knew his face—the face of her child who had never been born. It was quite clear to her—that dear yet terrible blending of the features of him who had taken her love and discarded it, who had taken her soul and drained it and forgotten, the blending of the features of him who, in spite of all, was still so dear with her own features.

His grey eyes and wavy golden hair and the soft outline of his lips and chin were all