'Mother,' he whispered, 'I dared not say it before, but I must say it now. I think—I think—Bela is gone to try and bring him home.'
'Him!' she echoed, while a thrill ran like fire and ice together through her, from head to foot. 'You mean—your father?'
'Yes.'
She was silent. Her breast heaved.
'What makes you say that?' she asked, at last.
'Bela thought of nothing else all this year and last year, too,' said Gela, in a hushed voice. 'He was always talking of it. When he was smaller he thought of riding all over the world. Yesterday he was so strange, and when we went to bed he kissed me ever so many times; and he prayed a long, long while. And for nothing less would he have taken the sword, I think. And—and I heard the men saying to-day that our father was somewhere near; and I think that Bela might have heard that, and so have gone to bring him home.'
'To bring him home!'
The words, uttered in his son's soft, grave, flute-like voice, pierced her heart. She could not speak.
'Will he rob me even of my first-born?' she thought, bitterly.
At that moment Greswold entered. Gela, looking in his face, gave a shout of joy.