“Yesterday at this time,” she said finally, “Vina Nettleton was here.  She spoke of your great help in her work——­”

“Her studio was thrilling to me....  Altogether, getting back to New York has been my greatest experience.”

“You have been away very long?”

“So long that I don’t remember leaving, nor anything about it, except the boats and whistles, the elevated railways and the Park, and certain strains of music.  I remember seeing the animals, and the hall of that house——­”

“Where the light frightened you?”

“Yes.  And I remember the bees....  I have ridden through and about the Park several times, but I can’t seem to get anything back.  I felt like asking questions, as I did long ago, of my mother.”

Beth wanted to tell him that she would ride with him sometime and answer questions, but he seemed very near the deep places, and she dared not urge nor interrupt.

“It was very clear to me then, that we needed each other,” he added.  “A child knows that.  She must have answered all the questions in the world, for I was always satisfied.  I wonder that she had time to think about her own things....  Isn’t it remarkable, and I don’t remember anything she said?”

Bedient seemed to be thinking aloud, as if this were the right place to talk of these things.  They had been in the foreground of his mind continually, but never uttered before.

“It was always above words—­our relation,” he went on presently.  “Though we must have talked and talked—­it is not the words I remember—­but realizations of truth which came to me afterward, from them.  What a place for a little boy’s hand to be!...

“I remember the long voyage, and she was always near.  There were many strange things—­far too strange to remember; and then, the sick room.  She was a long time there.  I could not be with her as much as I wanted.  It was very miserable all around, though it seems the people were not unkind.  They must have been very poor.  And then, one night I knew that my mother was going to die.  I could not move, when this came to me.  I tried not to breathe, tried to die too; and some one came in and shook me, and it was all red about my eyes.

“They took me to her, but I couldn’t tell what I knew, though she saw it.  And this I remember, though it was in the dark.  The others were sent away, and she made a place for me on her arm, and she laughed, and whispered and whispered.  Why, she made me over that night on her arm!

“She must have whispered it a thousand times—­so it left a lasting impression.  Though I could not always see her, she would always be near!  That remains from the night, though none of the words ever came back.  I never lost that, and it was true....  Do you see how great she was to laugh that night?...  And how she had to struggle to leave that message on such a little boy’s mind?...  More wonderful and wonderful it becomes, as I grow older.  She was dying, and we had been such dependent lovers.  She was not leaving me, as it had been with us, nor in any way as she liked....