th us
bodily, but his spirit is never absent. And each day we remember some
new thing about him that one of us can call to the other's mind. And
it is as if, when we do that, we bring back some part of him out of
the void.

Little, trifling memories of when he was a baby, and when he was a
boy, growing up! And other memories, of later days. Often and often
it was the days that were furthest away that we remembered best of
all, and things connected with those days.

But I had small wish to see others. John's mother was enough for me.
She and the peace that was coming to me on the Clyde. I could not
bear to think of London. I had no plans to make. All that was over.
All that part of my life, I thought, had ended with the news of my
boy's death. I wanted no more than to stay at home on the Clyde and
think of him. My wife and I did not even talk about the future. And
no thing was further from all my thoughts than that I should ever
step upon a stage again.

What! Go out before an audience and seek to make it laugh? Sing my
songs when my heart was broken? I did not decide not to do it. I did
not so much as think of it as a thing I had to decide about.

CHAPTER IX

And then one thing and another brought the thought into my mind, so
that I had to face it and tell people how I felt about it. There were
neighbors, wanting to know when I would be about my work again. That
it was that first made me understand that others did not feel as I
was feeling.

"They're thinking I'll be going back to work again," I told John's
mother. "I canna'!"

She felt as I did. We could not see, either one of us, in our grief,
how anyone could think that I could begin again where I had left off.

"I canna'! I will not try!" I told her, again and again. "How can I
tak up again with that old mummery? How can I laugh when my heart is
breaking, and make others smile when the tears are in my eyes?"

And she thought as I did, that I could not, and that no one should be
asking me. The war had taken much of what I had earned, in one way or
another. I was not so rich as I had been, but there was enough. There
was no need for me to go back to work, so far as our living was
concerned. And so it seemed to be settled between us. Planning we
left for the future. It was no time for us to be making plans. It
mattered little enough to us what might be in store for us. We could
take things as they might come.

So we bided quiet in our home, and talked