My horror fell away from me like a discarded garment.  This child was living.  How he had come there, whence and why, I did not know and, in my state of mind, did not question.  It was no cry of parted spirit I had heard—­that was enough for me.

“Oh, the poor darling!” cried my wife.

She stooped over the dory and lifted the baby in her arms.  His long, fair curls fell on her shoulder; she laid her face against his and wrapped her shawl around him.

“Let me carry him, dear,” I said.  “He is very wet, and too heavy for you.”

“No, no, I must carry him.  My arms have been so empty—­they are full now.  Oh, David, the pain at my heart has gone.  He has come to me to take the place of my own.  God has sent him to me out of the sea.  He is wet and cold and tired.  Hush, sweet one, we will go home.”

Silently I followed her home.  The wind was rising, coming in sudden, angry gusts; the storm was at hand, but we reached shelter before it broke.  Just as I shut our door behind us it smote the house with the roar of a baffled beast.  I thanked God that we were not out in it, following the dream-child.

“You are very wet, Josie,” I said.  “Go and put on dry clothes at once.”

“The child must be looked to first,” she said firmly.  “See how chilled and exhausted he is, the pretty dear.  Light a fire quickly, David, while I get dry things for him.”

I let her have her way.  She brought out the clothes our own child had worn and dressed the waif in them, rubbing his chilled limbs, brushing his wet hair, laughing over him, mothering him.  She seemed like her old self.

For my own part, I was bewildered.  All the questions I had not asked before came crowding to my mind how.  Whose child was this?  Whence had he come?  What was the meaning of it all?

He was a pretty baby, fair and plump and rosy.  When he was dried and fed, he fell asleep in Josie’s arms.  She hung over him in a passion of delight.  It was with difficulty I persuaded her to leave him long enough to change her wet clothes.  She never asked whose he might be or from where he might have come.  He had been sent to her from the sea; the dream-child had led her to him; that was what she believed, and I dared not throw any doubt on that belief.  She slept that night with the baby on her arm, and in her sleep her face was the face of a girl in her youth, untroubled and unworn.

I expected that the morrow would bring some one seeking the baby.  I had come to the conclusion that he must belong to the “Cove” across the harbor, where the fishing hamlet was; and all day, while Josie laughed and played with him, I waited and listened for the footsteps of those who would come seeking him.  But they did not come.  Day after day passed, and still they did not come.