tap. It seemed as if
it might go on through eternity....

I went to the Stotts' cottage, though I knew there could be no news.
Challis had given strict instructions that any news should be brought to
him immediately. If it was bad news it was to be brought to him before
the mother was told.

There was a light burning in the cottage, and the door was set wide
open.

I went up to the door but I did not go in.

Ellen Mary was sitting in a high chair, her hands clasped together, and
she rocked continually to and fro. She made no sound; she merely rocked
herself with a steady, regular persistence.

She did not see me standing at the open door, and I moved quietly away.

As I walked over the Common--I avoided the wood deliberately--I wondered
what was the human limit of endurance. I wondered whether Ellen Mary
had not reached that limit.

Mrs. Berridge had not gone to bed, and there were some visitors in the
kitchen. I heard them talking. Mrs. Berridge came out when I opened the
front door.

"Any news, sir?" she asked.

"No; no news," I said. I had been about to ask her the same question.

V

I did not go to sleep for some time. I had a picture of Ellen Mary
before my eyes, and I could still hear that steady pat, patter, drip, of
the rain on the beech leaves.

In the night I awoke suddenly, and thought I heard a long, wailing cry
out on the Common. I got up and looked out of the window, but I could
see nothing. The rain was still falling, but there was a blur of light
that showed where the moon was shining behind the clouds. The cry, if
there had been a cry, was not repeated.

I went back to bed and soon fell asleep again.

I do not know whether I had been dreaming, but I woke suddenly with a
presentation of the little pond on the Common very clear before me.

"We never looked in the pond," I thought, and then--"but he could not
have fallen into the pond; besides, it's not two feet deep."

It was full daylight, and I got up and found that it was nearly seven
o'clock.

The rain had stopped, but there was a scurry of low, threatening cloud
that blew up from the south.

I dressed at once and went out. I made my way directly to the Stotts'
cottage.

The lamp was still burning and the door open, but Ellen Mary had fallen
forward on to the table; her head was pillowed on her arms.

"There _is_ a limit to our endurance," I reflected, "and she has reached
it."

I left her undisturbed.

Outside I met