head. In the thin, blown light of the candelabra which he held high, the
worry and doubt of her deepened on his singularly-unlined face.

"And you might well catch your death in that draft, ma'am."

But she only continued to stare out between the pillars where the
lilac-hedge made a wall of deeper blackness across the night.

"What am I thinking of?" she whispered, and then: _"There!"_

And this time the old man heard it, a nearer, wind-blown hail.

"Mother! Oh, Mother!"

The boy came striding through the gap of the gate in the hedge.

"It's I, Mother! Chris! Aren't you surprised?"

She had no answer. As he came she turned and moved away from the door,
and the old man, peering from under the flat candle flames, saw her face
like wax. And he saw the boy, Christopher, in the doorway, his hands
flung out, his face transfigured.

"Mother! I'm here! Don't you understand?"

He touched her shoulder. She turned to him, as it were, lazily.

"Yes," she breathed. "I see."

He threw his arms about her, and felt her shaking from head to foot. But