"Yes. He was so real!"
"Well then, Mother darling, I guess the dream ought not to have been back home, but here, in this very house. For here's where Jim will come."
"Oh, I do feel that!" she agreed, trying to "camouflage" a tear with a smile. "Jim's with me all the time."
"Not yet," said Father Beckett, with a stolid gentleness. "Not yet. Not the real Jim. But he'll come."
"You mean, when Molly and I've finished putting out all his treasures in the den, just as he'd like to see them?"
"He might come before you get the den ready. He might come—any day now—even to-morrow." The gnarled brown hand smoothed the small, shrivelled white one with nervous strokes and passes.
"Father!" she sat up suddenly, straight and rigid among her cushions. "You've heard—you're trying to break something to me. Tell me right out. Jim's alive!"
She snatched her hand free, and bending forward, flung both arms round the old man's neck before he could answer. I sprang up to give them room. I thought they had forgotten me. But no. Out came Father Beckett's big hand to snatch my dress.
"This child got the news—a letter," he explained. "The boy was afraid of the shock for us. He thought she——"
"A shock of joy—why, that gives life—not death!" sobbed and laughed Mother Beckett. "But it was right to let Molly know first. She's more to him than we are now. Oh, Father—Father—our Jim's alive—alive! I think in my soul I knew it all the time. I never felt he was gone. He must have sent me thoughts. Dear ones, I want to pray. I want to thank God—now, this instant, before I hear more—before I read the letter. We three together—on our knees!"