But she was not there.  He only glanced inside the room, and then, with a smile on his face, went swiftly upstairs.  He had noticed the light in the upper windows, and he knew where he would find his wife.  Before he reached the nursery, he heard Katherine’s voice.  The door was a little open, and he could see every part of the charming domestic scene within the room.  A middle-aged woman was quietly putting to rights the sweet disorder incident to the undressing of the baby.  Katherine had played with it until they were both a little flushed and weary; and she was softly singing to the drowsy child at her breast.

It was a very singular chiming melody, and the low, sweet, tripping syllables were in a language quite unknown to him.  But he thought that he had never heard music half so sweet and tender; and he listened to it, and watched the drowsy, swaying movements of the mother, with a strange delight,—­

“Trip a trop a tronjes,
De varkens in de boonjes,
De keojes in de klaver,
De paardeen in de haver,
De eenjes in de waterplass,
So groot mijn kleine Joris wass.”

Over and over, softer and slower, went the melody.  It was evident that the boy was asleep, and that Katherine was going to lay him in his cradle.  He watched her do it; watched her gently tuck in the cover, and stand a moment to look down at the child.  Then with a face full of love she turned away, smiling, and quite unconsciously came toward him on tiptoes.  With his face beaming, with his arms opened, he entered; but with such a sympathetic understanding of the sweet need of silence and restraint that there was no alarm, no outcry, no fuss or amazement.  Only a whispered “Katherine,” and the swift rapture of meeting hearts and lips.

[Illustration:  Chapter heading]

XIII.

              “Death asks for no man’s leave,
          But lifts the latch, and enters, and sits down.”

The great events of most lives occur in epochs.  A certain period is marked by a succession of important changes, but that ride of fortune, be it good or ill, culminates, recedes, goes quite out, and leaves life on a level beach of commonplaces.  Then, sooner or later, the current of affairs turns again; sometimes with a calm, irresistible flow, sometimes in a tidal wave of sudden and overwhelming strength.  After Hyde’s and Katherine’s marriage, there was a long era noticeable only for such vicissitudes as were incident to their fortune and position.  But in May, A.D. 1774, the first murmur of the returning tide of destiny was heard.  Not but what there had been for long some vague and general expectation of momentous events which would touch many individual lives; but this May night, a singular prescience of change made Hyde restless and impatient.