"He is dead?"
She read the answer in my face. She cried:
"Oh, Johnnie-Johnnie Boy! Dead!"
She took the child up in her arms. She said to it, almost tranquilly: "Johnnie Boy has gone away, darling.
Daddy has had to go away. Don't cry, darling, we'll soon see him!"
I wished she would break down, weep; but that deep fear which never left her eyes was too strong; it
blocked all normal outlets of sorrow. Not much longer, I realized, could her mind stand up under that
tension.
"McCann," I whispered, "say something, do something to her that will arouse her. Make her violently
angry, or make her cry. I don't care which."