But it was this crowning insult to her agony, the shortening of the
too brief time when she could watch by all that remained to her of
her child, which drove her completely wild. She reproached him now
plainly and bitterly enough. She would neither listen to reason nor
obey; and when--with more truth than taste--he observed that other
people lost children, and that they had plenty left, she laughed in
his face that wild laugh which drove him back to the mill and to the
storm.

How it raged! The miller's wife was an uneducated, commonplace
woman enough, but, in the excited state of her nervous system, she
was as sensible as any poet of a kind of comforting harmony in the
wild sounds without; though at another time they would have
frightened her.

They did not disturb the children, who were in bed. Four in the old
press-bed in the corner, and one in a battered crib, and one in the
narrow bed over which the coverlet was not yet green.

The day's work was over for her, though it was only just beginning
for the miller, and the mother had nothing to do but weep, and her
tears fell and fell, and the rain poured and poured. That last
outburst had somewhat relieved her, and she almost wished her
husband would come back, as a flash of lightning dazzled her eyes,
and the thunder rattled round the old mill, as if the sails had
broken up again, and were falling upon the roof of the round-house.
All her senses were acute to-night, and she listened for the
miller's footsteps, and so, listening, in the lull after the
thunder, she heard another sound. Wheels upon the road.