The children followed me to my room, wondering where I could have been so late.

I said I was tired, and begged them to leave me alone.

Then I locked my door, and a solitary hour of anguish passed.

The fever of uncertainty would not let me weep; I suffered without much sign, but in such a degree as I had never dreamed of before.
There was something horrible that I had to realise and could not.

John hurt and dying away from his home, without one by to comfort him, without his mother's blessing, without a whisper to tell him that I had loved him and would mourn for him all my life! John vanished from the earth--lost to us for ever! The sickly moonlight fell about me with a ghastly peace, and the horror of death froze my heart.
Tea-hour arrived, and the girls knocked at the door.