Nothing about her was
sadder than that strange singing.
When I went back to the house the rain was beginning to fall; but
there was no wind or sound in the air--only that dismal
stillness, as if the world were holding its breath in expectation
of a calamity.
Josie was standing by the window, looking out and listening. I
tried to induce her to go to bed, but she only shook her head.
"I might fall asleep and not hear him when he called," she said.
"I am always afraid to sleep now, for fear he should call and his
mother fail to hear him."
Knowing it was of no use to entreat, I sat down by the table and
tried to read. Three hours passed on. When the clock struck
midnight she started up, with the wild light in her sunken blue
eyes.
"He is calling," she cried, "calling out there in the storm.
Yes, yes, sweet, I am coming!"
She opened the door and fled down the path to the shore. I
snatched a lantern from the wall, lighted it, and followed. It
was the blackest night I was ever out in, dark with the very
darkness of death. The rain fell thickly and heavily. I
overtook Josie, caught her hand, and stumbled along in her wake,
for she went with the speed and recklessness of a distraught
woman. We moved in the little flitting circle of light shed by
the lantern. All around us and above us was a horrible,
voiceless darkness, held, as it were, at bay by the friendly
light.
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