"You see--my
child--I didn't have anything to love but your picture...."
What a fool he was to try and make himself heard above the roaring in
his head! His words seemed to him whispers coming across a great space.
And the bundle on his shoulders was like a crushing weight bearing him
down! The voice at his side was growing fainter. It was saying things
which afterward he could not remember, but he knew that it was talking
about the woman he had said was her mother, and that he was answering it
while weights of lead were dragging at his feet. Then suddenly, he had
stepped over the edge of the world and was floating in that vast, black
chaos again. The voice did not leave him. He could hear it sobbing,
entreating him, urging him to do something which he could not
understand; and when at last he did begin to comprehend it he knew also
that he was no longer walking with weights at his feet and a burden on
his shoulders, but was on the ground. His head was on her breast, and
she was no longer speaking to him, but was crying like a child with a
heart utterly broken. The deathly sickness was gone as quickly as it had
stricken him, and he struggled upward, with her arms helping him.
"You are hurt--hurt--" he heard her moaning.
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