‘We all have need of prayers,’ says Crosby gravely. ‘Mr. Barry, this is an adventure of mine, out of which no man can say how I may come. I take your child from you, but how can I say that I will bring him back to you? If you will pray, pray for him, and for me, too, that we may come back together.’
CHAPTER XLIX.
‘Tears from the depth of some divine despair.’
Thus it was arranged, and when another week has come and gone, the day arrives when Crosby is to carry off little Bonnie to distant lands with a view to his recovery.
Susan had of course been told, and there had been a rather painful scene between her and her aunt and her father.
‘Bonnie to be taken from her!’ and so soon.
‘But for his good, Susan.’
She had given in at the last, as was inevitable, with many cruel tearings at her heart, and miserable beliefs that his going now would mean his going for ever. He would never come back. And they would bury him there in that strange land without his Susan to comfort him and soothe his dying moments.
It is with great fainting of the spirit that Susan rises to-day—to-day, that will see her little lad carried away from her, no matter in whose kindly hands, to where she cannot know under three days’ post whether he be alive or——
At one part of his dressing (he has never yet since his first illness been dressed by anyone but Susan) she had given way.