As she went toward the gate the Captain's wife met her. "Where are you going?" she asked.
"To—to the little lad," faltered Katherine.
"Oh," said the other, quickly, turning away as if she had been hurt. For a moment the childless woman envied the other her grave.
Half a mile from the Fort, in a hollow near the river, was a little mound, marked only by a rude slab of limestone and the willow that grew above it. At the sight of it her eyes filled.
"Oh, Baby," she sobbed, pressing her face against the cold turf above him, "I wish I was down there beside you, as still and as dreamless as you! You don't know what it means—you never would have known! Oh, I'd rather be a stone than a woman with a heart!"
"Katherine!" cried a man's voice beside her; "Katherine!" Norton's arm lifted her from the grave and held her close. "Dear heart," he said, "is the world unkind?"
She drew away from him, but he still held her cold hand in his. "My heart aches for you, Katherine—can't you tell me?"
"You never lost a child," she whispered, clutching at the straw.
"That is true, but I have lost far more. I——" He stopped and bit his lips upon the words that struggled for utterance. "Come away," he said, gently.
He led her to the bank of the stream, where they sat down under a tree. She leaned against it, unconscious that he still held her hand.