But the unhappy mother was not thus to be consoled.  She shook like a leaf; she turned white as the very snow that hung drifted into her hair.  The firm old man extended his hand and held her up, keeping his eye upon hers as if to repress any outbreak of passion.

“I am a woman—­I am but a woman; will He try me above my strength?” said Catharine, very quickly and almost in a whisper.  “I have been wounded sore; I have suffered much—­many things in the body, many in the mind; crucified in myself and in them that were dearest to me.  Surely,” added she, with a long shudder, “he hath spared me in this one thing.”  She broke forth with sudden and irrepressible violence:  “Tell me, man of cold heart, what has God done to me?  Hath he cast me down never to rise again?  Hath he crushed my very heart in his hand?—­And thou to whom I committed my child, how hast thou fulfilled thy trust?  Give me back the boy well, sound, alive—­alive—­or earth and heaven shall avenge me!”

The agonized shriek of Catharine was answered by the faint—­the very faint—­voice of a child.

On this day it had become evident to Pearson, to his aged guest and to Dorothy that Ilbrahim’s brief and troubled pilgrimage drew near its close.  The two former would willingly have remained by him to make use of the prayers and pious discourses which they deemed appropriate to the time, and which, if they be impotent as to the departing traveller’s reception in the world whither he goes, may at least sustain him in bidding adieu to earth.  But, though Ilbrahim uttered no complaint, he was disturbed by the faces that looked upon him; so that Dorothy’s entreaties and their own conviction that the child’s feet might tread heaven’s pavement and not soil it had induced the two Quakers to remove.  Ilbrahim then closed his eyes and grew calm, and, except for now and then a kind and low word to his nurse, might have been thought to slumber.  As nightfall came on, however, and the storm began to rise, something seemed to trouble the repose of the boy’s mind and to render his sense of hearing active and acute.  If a passing wind lingered to shake the casement, he strove to turn his head toward it; if the door jarred to and fro upon its hinges, he looked long and anxiously thitherward; if the heavy voice of the old man as he read the Scriptures rose but a little higher, the child almost held his dying-breath to listen; if a snowdrift swept by the cottage with a sound like the trailing of a garment, Ilbrahim seemed to watch that some visitant should enter.  But after a little time he relinquished whatever secret hope had agitated him and with one low complaining whisper turned his cheek upon the pillow.  He then addressed Dorothy with his usual sweetness and besought her to draw near him; she did so, and Ilbrahim took her hand in both of his, grasping it with a gentle pressure, as if to assure himself that he retained it.  At intervals, and without disturbing the repose of his countenance, a very faint trembling passed over him from head to foot, as if a mild but somewhat cool wind had breathed upon him and made him shiver.