“I stop, literally suffocated with emotion.
“Father comes over, and lays his kind brown hand on my bent prone head. ‘My child,’ he says, ‘my dear child,’ (and tears are dimming the clear grey of his own eyes), ‘you are wrong to make up your mind to what is the worst at once. I do not disguise from you that there is cause for grave anxiety about the dear fellow, but still God is good; He has kept both him and me hitherto; into His hands we must trust our boy.’
“I sit up, and shake away my tears.
“‘It is no use,’ I say. ‘Why should I hope? There is no hope! I know it for a certainty! He is dead’ (looking round at them both with a sort of calmness); ‘he died on the night that I had that dream—mother, I told you so at the time. Oh, my Bobby! I knew that you could not leave me for ever without coming to tell me!’
“‘And so speaking, I fall into strong hysterics and am carried upstairs to bed. And so three or four more lagging days crawl by, and still we hear nothing, and remain in the same state of doubt and uncertainty; which to me, however, is hardly uncertainty; so convinced am I, in my own mind, that my fair-haired lover is away in the land whence never letter or messenger comes—that he has reached the Great Silence. So I sit at my frame, working my heart’s agony into the tapestry, and feebly trying to say to God that He has done well, but I cannot. On the contrary, it seems to me, as my life trails on through the mellow mist of the autumn mornings, through the shortened autumn evenings, that, whoever has done it, it is most evilly done. One night we are sitting round the little crackling wood fire that one does not need for warmth, but that gives a cheerfulness to the room and the furniture, when the butler Stephens enters, and going over to father, whispers to him. I seem to understand in a moment what the purport of his whisper is.’
“‘Why does he whisper?’ I cry, irritably. ‘Why does not he speak out loud? Why should you try to keep it from me? I know that it is something about Bobby.’
“Father has already risen, and is walking towards the door.
“‘I will not let you go until you tell me,’ I cry wildly, flying after him.
“‘A sailor has come over from Plymouth,’ he answers hurriedly; ‘he says he has news. My darling, I will not keep you in suspense a moment longer than I can help, and meanwhile pray—both of you pray for him!’
“I sit rigidly still, with my cold hand tightly clasped, during the moments that next elapse. Then father returns. His eyes are full of tears, and there is small need to ask for his message; it is most plainly written on his features—death, and not life.