"Bobby, Bobby, how can you taunt me with it?" she moaned, in a frenzy of unreasoning grief. "Go away—go away! I want to be alone—alone!"
All the brightness fled from the boy's face. His mouth was no longer dimpled, and his eyes showed a grieved hurt in their depths. Very slowly he turned away. At the top of the stairs he stopped and looked back. The door was still open, and the Lady in Black still sat with her hands over her face. He waited, but she did not move; then, with a half-stifled sob, he dropped on the top step and began to bump down the stairs, one at a time.
Long minutes afterward the Lady in Black raised her head and saw him through the window. He was down in the yard with his father, having a frolic under the apple tree.
A frolic!
The Lady in Black looked at them with somber eyes, and her mouth hardened at the corners. Bobby down there in the yard could laugh and dance and frolic. Bobby had some one to play with him, some one to love him and care for him; while out there on the hillside Kathleen was alone—all alone. Kathleen had no one—
With a little cry the Lady in Black sprang to her feet and hurried into her own room. Her hands shook as she pinned on her hat and shrouded herself in the long folds of her black veil; but her step was firm as she swept downstairs and out through the hall.
The man under the apple tree rose hurriedly and came forward.
"Helen, dearest,—not again, to-day!" he begged. "Darling, it can't do any good!"
"But she's alone—all alone. You don't seem to think! No one thinks—no one knows how I feel. You don't understand—if you did, you'd come with me. You wouldn't ask me to stay—here!" choked the woman.
"I have been with you, dear," said the man gently. "I 've been with you to-day, and every day, almost, since—since she left us. But it can't do any good—this constant brooding over her grave. It only makes additional sorrow for you, for me, and for Bobby. Bobby is—here, you know, dear!"