“Long I stood, with clasped hands, gazing upward to the stars.
“The wind moaned and shrieked through the pines. The sea roared in the distance. Behind the house, an owl hooted, like a lost soul in agony, and seemed to mock my prayer.
“Up on the hill, the church bell tolled thrice.
“Suddenly an intense drowsiness overcame me—I, who for a month past had scarcely slept. I crept back to bed and fell asleep as my head touched the pillow.
“I slept until ten o’clock the next morning, then woke with such a sense of comfort and joy, that I could not understand what had happened.
“Then I remembered my call to you at midnight. And then I knew—knew with an unhesitating certainty—that my belovèd had kept his word; that some time between midnight and ten o’clock, on this 12th of September, 1883, he had come back, for my sake, and was now on earth once more, spending his first day as a little living, growing, beautiful man-child.
“Oh, the wonder of those hours! My breasts thrilled and ached with joy and longing. Ah, if I could but press his baby lips against them! The wife in me was merged in the wish that I could be his mother! I lived again. I smiled and laughed. For a long, weary month I had trailed about. I now ran up and down stairs. I lifted my arms to the sun and blessed him, as he rose in the heavens, because he was shining on my little boy. I tried to picture his nursery, his bassinet, his little gowns and flannels.
“My household evidently thought me demented; but I knew that this joy had saved my reason.
“During the next few days I scanned with eager eyes the births’ column in the ‘Times,’ making a list of the names and addresses of all the parents who had had sons on the 12th of September.
“Oh, Nigel, Nigel! I little thought—a door-step! A deserted bundle! A Foundlings’ Institution! Oh, my dear, if I could have flown to that door-step and found you, and brought you home! But—did you not say there was a date on the label, the date of your birth, written beneath ‘Returned Empty’?”