“Well, I am not sure that it isn’t what I thought about you,” said Howard.

“Ah,” said Mrs. Graves, “I am an old woman; and I don’t think death is so terrible to me.  Life is interesting enough, but I should often be glad to get away; there is something beyond that is a good deal easier and more beautiful.  But I don’t expect you to feel that.”

“You think she will get well?” said Howard faintly.

“Yes, she will get well, and soon,” said Mrs. Graves.  “She has been resting in her own natural way.  The poor dearest baby—­you don’t know, you can’t know, what that means to Maud and even to me; you will have to be very good to her for a long time yet; you won’t understand her sorrow—­she won’t expect you to; but you mustn’t fail her; and you must do as you are bid.  This afternoon you must just go out for a walk, and you must sleep, dear; that’s what you want; you don’t know what a spectre you are; and you must just get well as quick as you can, for Maud’s sake and mine.”

That afternoon there fell on Howard after his walk—­though the world was sweet to him and dear again, he was amazed to find how weak he was—­an unutterable drowsiness against which he could hardly fight.  The delicious weariness came on him like a summer air; he stumbled to bed that night, and oh, the wonder of waking in a new world, the incredible happiness that greeted him, happiness that merged again in a strange and serene torpor of the senses, every sight and sound striking sharp and beautiful on his eye and ear.

For some days he was only allowed to see Maud for little lengthening periods; they said little, but just sate in silence with a few whispered words.  Maud recovered fast, and was each day a little stronger.

One evening, as he sate with her, she said, “I want to tell you now what has been happening to me, dearest.  You must hear it all.  You must not grieve yourself about the little child, because you cannot have known it as I did—­but you must let me grieve a little . . . you will see when I tell you.  I won’t go back too far.  There was all the pain first—­I hope I did not behave very badly, but I was beside myself with pain, and then I went off . . . you know . . .  I don’t remember anything of that . . . and then I came back again, feeling that something very strange had happened to me, and I was full of joy; and then I saw that something was wrong, and it came over me what had happened.  The strange thing is that though I was so weak—­I could hardly think and I could not speak—­yet I never felt more clear or strong in mind—­no, not in mind either, but in myself.  It seems so strange that I have never even seen our child, not with my eyes, though that matters little.  But then when I understood, I did indeed fail utterly; you seemed to me so far away; I felt somehow that you were thinking only about me, and I could simply think of nothing but the child—­my own child, gone from me in a moment.  I simply prayed with all