They drove first to Bachelor Billy’s room.  Andy was still there and said he would remain during the night.  He said that Billy had spoken once or twice, apparently in his right mind, and was now sleeping quietly.

Then Mrs. Burnham went to her home.  She passed the long night in sleepless anxiety, waiting for the messages from the mine, which followed each other in slow succession.  They brought to her no good news.  The work was going on; the opening was full with wreckage; the air was very bad, even in the shaft.  These were the tidings.  It was hardly possible, they wrote, that the boy could still be living.

Long before the last star had paled and faded in the western sky, or the first rays of the morning sun had shot across the hills, despair had taken in her heart the place of hope.  She could only say:  “Well, he died as his father died, trying to save the lives of others.  I have two lost heroes now to mourn for and be proud of, instead of one.”

But even yet there crossed her mind at times the thought that possibly, possibly the one chance for life as against thousands and thousands for death might fall to her boy; and the further and deeper thought that the range of God’s mercy was very wide, oh, very wide!

CHAPTER XXIV.

AT THE DAWN OF DAY.

It was not until very late on the morning following the storm that Bachelor Billy came fully to his senses and realized what had happened.

He was told that the breaker had been struck by lightning and burned to the ground, and that his own illness was due to the severity of the electric shock.

He asked where Ralph was, and they told him that Ralph was up at the mine.  They thought it wiser that he should not know the truth about the boy just yet.

He thought to get up and dress himself, but he felt so weak and bruised, and the strong metallic taste in his mouth nauseated him so, that he yielded to the advice of those who were with him and lay down again.

He looked up anxiously at the clock, at intervals, and seemed to be impatient for the noon hour to arrive.  He thought Ralph would come then to his dinner.  He wondered that the boy should go away and leave him for so long a time alone in his illness.

The noon hour came, but Ralph did not come.

Andy Gilgallon returned and tried to divert the man’s mind with stories of the fire, but the attempt was in vain.

At one o’clock they made a pretence of sending Mrs. Maloney’s little girl to look for Ralph, in order to quiet Bachelor Billy’s growing apprehension.

But he remained very anxious and ill at ease.  It struck him that there was something peculiar about the conduct of the people who were with him when Ralph’s name was mentioned or his absence discussed.  A growing fear had taken possession of his mind that something was wrong, and so terribly wrong that they dared not tell it to him.