Page:The cry for justice - an anthology of the literature of social protest. - (IA cryforjusticea00sinc).pdf/698

 "That's just what I want to speak to you about. The kitten's gone to sleep all right, but I can't go. I've tried all different ways, counting and all, but it's no use, so I thought I'd ask you if you'd mind coming and staying with me, and letting me hold your hand for a little while, and then p'raps I could go."

The boy twined his arms round Owen's neck and hugged him very tightly.

"Oh, dad, I love you so much!" he said. "I love you so much I could squeeze you to death."

"I'm afraid you will, if you squeeze me so tightly as that."

The boy laughed softly as he relaxed his hold.

"That would be a funny way of showing you how much I loved you, wouldn't it, dad? Squeezing you to death!"

"Yes, I suppose it would," replied Owen, huskily, as he tucked the bedclothes round the child's shoulders. "But don't talk any more, dear, just hold my hand and try to sleep."

Lying there very quietly, holding his father's hand and occasionally kissing it, the child presently fell asleep

Owen lay listening to the howling of the wind and the noise of the rain as it poured heavily on the roof. But it was not the storm only that kept him awake. Through the dark hours of the night his thoughts were still haunted by the words on that piece of blood-stained paper on a kitchen wall: "This is not my crime, but Society's."