I cannot and dare not write of these days.  The child is very ill; it is some obscure inflammation of the brain-tissue.  I had an insupportable fear that it might have resulted in some way from being over-pressed in the matter of work, over-stimulated.  I asked the doctor.  If he lied to me, and I do not think he did, he lied like a man, or an angel.  “Not in the least,” he said, “it is a constitutional thing; in fact, I may say that the rational and healthy life the child has lived will help more than anything to pull him through.”

But I can’t write of the days.  I sleep, half-conscious of my misery.  I suppose I eat, walk, read.  But waking is like the waking of a prisoner who awakes up to be put on the rack, who hears doors open and feet approach, and sickens with dread as he lies.  God’s hand is heavy upon me day and night.  Surely nothing, in the world or out of it, can obliterate the memory of this suffering; perhaps, if Alec is given back to us, I shall smile at this time of suffering.  But, if not—­

August 12, 1889.

He is losing ground, he is hardly ever conscious now; he sleeps a good deal, but often he talks quietly to himself of all that we have done and said; he often supposes himself to be with me, and, thank God, he never says a word to show that he has ever feared or misunderstood me.  I could not bear that.  Yesterday when I was with him, he opened his eyes on me; I could see that he knew me, and that he was frightened.  I could not speak, but Maud, who was with me, just took his hand and with her own tranquil smile, said, “It is all right, Alec; there is nothing to be frightened about; we are here, and you will soon be well again.”  The child closed his eyes and lay smiling to himself.  I could not have done that.

August 13, 1889.

He died this morning, just at the dawn.  I knew last night that all hope was over.  I was with him half the night, and prayed, knowing my prayers were in vain.  That I could save him no suffering, could not keep him, could not draw him back.  Maud took my place at midnight; I slept, and in the grey dawn, I woke to find her standing with a candle by my bed; I knew in a moment, by a glance, that the end was near.  No word passed between us; I found Maggie by the bed; and we three together waited for the end.  I had never seen any one die.  He was quite unconscious, breathing slowly, looking just like himself, as though flushed with slumber.  At last he stirred, gave a long sigh, and seemed to settle himself for the last sleep.  I do not know when he died, but I became aware that life had passed, and that the little spirit that we loved had fled, God knows whither.  Maggie sate with her hand in mine; and in my dumb and frozen grief, almost without a thought of anything but a deep and cold resentment, a hatred of death and the maker of love and death alike, I became aware that both she and Maud had me in their thoughts, that my sorrow was even more to them than their own—­while I was cut off from them; from life and hope alike, in a place of darkness and in the deep.