The one thought that excited him was a hope that the sea might have somewhere cast the child on the shore before she was quite dead.
Running like a savage under the budding trees of the wood and across his father's fields, he leaped out of the darkness into the heat and brightness of his mother's kitchen.
Gay rugs lay on the yellow painted floor; the stove glistened with polish at its every corner.

The lamp shone brightly, and in its light Caius stood breathless, wet, half naked.

The picture of his father looking up from the newspaper, of his mother standing before him in alarmed surprise, seemed photographed in pain upon his brain for minutes before he could find utterance.

The smell of an abundant supper his mother had set out for him choked him.
When he had at last spoken--told of the blow Farmer Day had struck, of his wife's deed, and commanded that all the men that could be collected should turn out to seek for the child--he was astonished at finding sobs in the tones of his words.

He became oblivious for the moment of his parents, and leaned his face against the wooden wall of the room in a convulsion of nervous feeling that was weeping without tears.
It did not in the least surprise his parents that he should cry--he was only a child in their eyes.