Michael bent down.
“Come, Petsy,” he said, “come to bed in my room.”
The dog looked at him for a moment as if weighing his trustworthiness. Then he got up and, with grotesque Chinese high-stepping walk, came to him.
“He’ll be all right with me,” he said to the maid.
He took Petsy into his room next door, and laid him on the chair in which his mother had sat. The dog moved round in a circle once or twice, and then settled himself down to sleep. Michael went to bed also, and lay awake about a couple of minutes, not thinking, but only being, while the owls hooted outside.
He awoke into complete consciousness, knowing that something had aroused him, even as three days ago when the telephone rang to summon him to his mother’s deathbed. Then he did not know what had awakened him, but now he was sure that there had been a tapping on his door. And after he had sat up in bed completely awake, he heard Petsy give a little welcoming bark. Then came the noise of his small, soft tail beating against the cushion in the chair.
Michael had no feeling of fright at all, only of longing for something that physically could not be. And longing, only longing, once more he said:
“Come in, mother.”
He believed he heard the door whisper on the carpet, but he saw nothing. Only, the room was full of his mother’s presence. It seemed to him that, in obedience to her, he lay down completely satisfied. . . . He felt no curiosity to see or hear more. She was there, and that was enough.
He woke again a little after dawn. Petsy between the window and the door had jumped on to his bed to get out of the draught of the morning wind. For the door was opened.