In her dread of sentiment, she was bungling the explanation so badly that James Thorpe took it out of her hands.
"Kate, you may regard the young person in question" (he grinned down at it fatuously) "as our child in only the technical sense of the word. It is, in fact, Jemima's gift to you. She came to the conclusion that she could offer you nothing you would prefer to a grandson."
"But," choked Kate, between laughter and tears, "suppose it had been a granddaughter?"
"Evidently you don't yet know our Jemima," remarked the husband.
Even Kate's grandson, however, does not keep her long away from the mountains and Jacques.
She knows that their time together, hers and her husband's, must be short. Neither misunderstands the significance of the little cough with which he has fought, for years, a losing battle. But they know, too, that it is given to few to taste the splendor of life as they have tasted it together; the joy of dreams realized, of service shared.
Kate was right in her belief that Jacques could take no advantage of the disclosure made by Mahaly. "The stone I threw was meant for Basil," he said. "Nevertheless—I am glad it failed to strike him. And I think that Basil, wherever he is, must be glad, too."
"Wherever he is?" repeated Kate, quickly. The subject of the hereafter was become of poignant interest to her, facing as she must what lay before them. "Oh, Jacques! Are you beginning to believe—to believe—?"
He interrupted her sadly. "I can believe only what I can understand. You must forgive me, my Kate. Only, sometimes there are dreams a man has, echoes perhaps out of his childhood—" he broke off with a shrug, "And one is envious when one sees a faith such as Philip's in his God, so strong, so sure.—Like his little-boy faith that his father was the best and greatest of men, all-wise, infallible."