Chapter 4 - Page 2

mind. I conceived her so sympathetic
that she always laughed before he came to the joke, and I am sure
she had filmy eyes from the very start of a pathetic story.

And so, laughing and crying, and haunted by whispers, the little
nursery governess had gradually become another woman, glorified,
mysterious. I suppose a man soon becomes used to the great
change, and cannot recall a time when there were no babes
sprawling in his Mary's face.

I am trying to conceive what were the thoughts of the young
husband on the other side of the street. "If the barrier is to
be crossed to-night may I not go with her? She is not so brave
as you think her. When she talked so gaily a few hours ago, O my
God, did she deceive even you?"

Plain questions to-night. "Why should it all fall on her? What
is the man that he should be flung out into the street in this
terrible hour? You have not been fair to the man."

Poor boy, his wife has quite forgotten him and his trumpery love.
If she lives she will come back to him, but if she dies she will
die triumphant and serene. Life and death, the child and the
mother, are ever meeting as the one draws into harbour and the
other sets sail. They exchange a bright "All's well" and pass
on.

But afterward?

The only ghosts, I believe, who creep into this world, are dead
young mothers, returned to see how their children fare. There is
no other inducement great enough to bring the departed back.
They glide into the acquainted room when day and night, their
jailers, are in the grip, and whisper, "How is it with you, my
child?" but always, lest a strange face should frighten him, they
whisper it so low that he may not hear. They bend over him to
see that he sleeps peacefully, and replace his sweet arm beneath
the coverlet, and they open the drawers to count how many little
vests he has. They love to do these things.

What is saddest about ghosts is that they may not know their
child. They expect him to be just as he was when they left him,
and they are easily bewildered, and search for him from room to
room, and hate the unknown boy he has become. Poor, passionate
souls, they may even do him an injury. These are the ghosts that
go wailing about old houses, and foolish wild stories are
invented to explain what is all so pathetic and simple. I know
of a man who, after wandering far, returned to his early home to
pass the evening of his days in it, and sometimes from his chair
by the fire he saw the door open softly and a woman's face
appear. She always looked at him very vindictively, and then
vanished. Strange things happened in this house. Windows were
opened in the night. The curtains of his bed were