I had to turn away. For there came before me, with a flash of memory, the days to which I knew my husband's words referred. Old Point Comfort, of dear and blessed memory!—thither had we turned our steps the night of our wedding day, going forth by the moonlit bay on our love-bright journey, the future years, with all the thorny paths that awaited us, veiled in the mist of happiness that arose from our singing hearts. Ah me! I could see again the unseamed face, the hair untouched by time, the swimming eyes of love, when my lover was still young and joyous, unworn with toil and care.
"That's where we'll go," I answered; "we'll go to Old Point, Gordon."
The arrangements for our journey were soon complete. I do not think, even were it possible, that I would willingly forego all the discipline—and the blessing—that our years of poverty had brought me; but now I blessed the providence that had made it possible for me to take Gordon away like this. Money was not lacking now—thanks to grandfather and that blessed mine—and I joyed over it as men rejoice in harvest or as robbers that divide the spoil.
The evening before the very day we were to start, something occurred which wrung my heart as nothing, not even the loss of Harold, had ever done before. I had been compelled to leave Gordon for a little while, some detail of preparation demanding my attention. Returning to the study, our usual resort, I found it empty; and my heart chilled with fear.
"Come, Helen," I suddenly heard Gordon's voice crying from without; "oh, Helen, come, come quick." There was a strange note of excitement, even of rapture, in the voice that called me.
Hatless, coatless, I rushed out into the frosty night. And just across the way, in a large adjoining yard, I could see Gordon hurrying fast toward a little pond in the distance. Sometimes he looked back and called me, then hurried on again, the strange exultation still sounding in his voice. When I overtook him, he was clasping in his arms a wondering boy, a solitary skater on the frozen pond.
"It's our boy, mother—oh, Helen, he's come at last. It's Harold, mother"—and I noticed in the failing light that the lad was actually about Harold's size and form. "I knew you'd come back, Harold," he cried as he held the youth to his bosom; "oh, my son, I knew you'd come—but what made you stay away so long? And are you cold, Harold?—I've been so afraid you might be cold." Then he held the startled boy out before him, his eyes lingering with pitiful intentness on the face he held upturned to his own. "You've grown some," he said fondly, "but you're my own Harold yet—come, come on home now with me and mother. Your bed's all ready for you, Harold; and Dorothy will be so glad—she's lonely, she's lonely for you, Harold."
I stood transfixed and mute with grief. Then the lad made some reply, I know not what. But he broke the awful silence with a word—and Gordon's hands fell to his side like lead. He stood a moment under the trembling stars, then stooped and gazed long into the face that had filled his soul with fleeting rapture. Slowly he turned, looked a moment upward at the wintry sky, then silently moved towards me.
"It isn't Harold," he said after a long pause, his eyes searching my face with unutterable yearning; "it's somebody else's boy—let us go home again," as we started back hand in hand. The clock in an adjoining steeple struck the hour as we went our way; and its knell is with me yet.
The next day saw us off upon our southward journey, Dorothy and Gordon and I. The doctor had filled me with high hope; the change of air, and especially of scene, he said, were almost sure to do great things for my dear one. And the very features that alarmed me most were those by which he seemed to be reassured. The very acuteness of the malady, he said, was its most hopeful sign. I have often thought of this since and applied it to many things other than bodily infirmities; the acute is the transient, let all sufferers bear in mind, and all who think life's battle hard.