“It’s a great deal of money, dear,” said Mrs. Leighton to Natalie.  “What shall we do?”

For a moment Natalie did not reply, and when she spoke, it was not in answer.  She said: 

“Mother, where is Lew?  I want him.”  Her low voice quivered with desire.

Mrs. Leighton put her fingers into Natalie’s soft hair and drew the girl’s head against her breast.  A lump rose in her throat.  She longed to murmur comfort, but she had long since lost the habit of words.  What was life worth if she could not buy with it happiness for this her only remaining love?

“Darling,” she whispered at last, “whatever you wish, whatever you say, we’ll do.  Do you think—­would you like to go back to—­to Nadir—­and look for Lewis?”

Natalie divined the sacrifice in those halting words.  Her thin arms went up around Ann Leighton’s neck.  She pressed her face hard against her mother’s shoulder.  She wanted to cry, but could not.  Without raising her face, she shook her head and said: 

“No, no.  I don’t want ever to go back to Nadir.  Lew is not there.  That night—­that night after we buried father I went out on the hills and called for Lew.  He did not answer.  Suddenly I just knew he wasn’t there.  I knew that he was far, far away.”

Ann Leighton did not try to reason against instinct.  She softly rocked Natalie to and fro, her pale eyes fixed on the setting sun.  Gradually the sunset awoke in her mind a stabbing memory.  Here on this bench she had sat, Natalie, a baby, in her lap, and in the shelter of her arms little Lewis and—­and Shenton, her boy.  By yonder rail she had stood with her unconscious boy in her arms, and day had suddenly ceased as though beyond the edge of the world somebody had put out the light forever.  Her pale eyes grew luminous.  The unaccustomed tears welled up in them and trickled down the cheeks that had known so long a drought.  They rained on Natalie’s head.

“Mother!” cried Natalie, looking up—­“Mother!” Then she buried her face again in Ann’s bosom, and together they sobbed out all the oppressing pain and grief of life’s heavy moment.  Not by strength alone, but also by frailty, do mothers hold the hearts of their children.  Natalie, hearing and feeling her mother sob, passed beyond the bourn of generations and knew Ann and herself as one in an indivisible, quivering humanity.

Mammy’s chair stopped rocking.  She listened; then she got up and came out on the veranda.  Her eyes fell upon mother and daughter huddled together in the dusk.  She hovered over them.  Her loose clothes made her seem ample, almost stolid.

“Wha’ fo’ you chilun’s crying?” she demanded.

“We’re not crying,” sobbed Natalie.

“Huh!” snorted mammy.  “Yo’ jes come along outen this night air, bof of yo’, an’ have yo’ suppah.  Come on along, Miss Ann.  Come on along, yo’ young Miss Natalie.”

“Just a minute, mammy; in just a minute,” gasped Natalie.  “You go put supper on the table.”  Then she rose to her feet, and drew her mother up to her.  “Kiss me,” she said and smiled.  She was suddenly strong again with the strength of youth.