She pushed the child forward with a forlorn sigh. It whimpered a little as I lifted it, but I held it snug against my shoulder, and its soft breath on my cheeks seemed to melt the hard core of agony in my brain.
Soon I had them in a quiet spot and seated upon a fallen log. There, holding the child against me, I looked in the eyes of the mother and could have wept.
“Zyp, Zyp! What is it?”
A boisterous clap of wind tumbled her dark hair as I spoke. What was it? Her lustrous head was strewed with ashy threads, as if the clipping fate had trimmed some broken skein of life over it; her eyes were like fathomless pools shrunk with drought; an impenetrable sorrow was figured in her wasted face. This was the shadow of Zyp—not the sweet substance—and moving among ghosts and shadows my own life seemed stumbling toward the grave.
CHAPTER LVII.
A PROMISE.
Clasping thin, nervous fingers, Zyp looked up in my face fearfully.
“Have you seen Jason?”
“No. Has he come, too?”
“He’s gone on before to the mill to seek you.”
“God help him! I’ve been out all day. Is it the old trouble, Zyp?”