gently--and we could not hold her.

"What is a man anyway?" he demanded abruptly, but they did not speak:
they knew he did not see them. "What is a man?" he reiterated. "I have
made thousands laugh the world over: I have driven away their sorrows and
heartaches, for a few hours at least, but I could not drive away the
shadow; I could not, I could not. Nor could she who held first place in
my heart and first place in the heart of our darling." His voice lowered
again and he went on, "After--after--we had laid her little body in the
graveyard we went to the home of a friend, thinking--thinking: I know not
what. But when the night came, I could not rest nor even sit still, and
all the while she was listening, listening, and looking at her arms. I
knew, I knew: for my heart was bleeding too, and at last I took her arm,
and together we went back to our own home; 'For it seems to me,' said my
wife, 'that I hear the patter of her little feet moving about the rooms,
and I hear her crying, "Mamma: Dad-dy:" and we are not there, Jacob, and
she'll be so lonely, so lonely.'

"I was thinking that too. I could not have stayed away, and so back we
went. She--she--my wife, seemed more content there. But always I
noticed that she seemed to be listening and waiting, and often she smiled
and talked as though she was answering the little one, but--but----" his
head was drooping, he seemed to be falling asleep. Whimple stirred
uneasily, and Tommy Watson, whose cheeks were wet with tears, shook a
warning finger at him. The old man looked up again. "The shadow came
again," he said quietly, "and somewhere--somewhere--they are waiting for
me. Men differ on religion, and fight over the future state. What do I
know of it? I don't know. A Jew, though a British subject born, a
comedian--some say I have no religion, and never had. I don't know.
But, oh! I know they wait for me--and where they wait is home."

For a long time there was silence; Epstein was the first to break it. He
stood up suddenly, and with a new light in his eyes asked of Whimple, as
though seeing him for the first time that day, how he liked the carriage
and the doll.

"Fine," said Whimple as heartily as he could, for his throat was lumpy
and his heart was beating quickly.

"I'm glad of that. Why, what's the matter, Tommy, you look as though you
had been crying?"

"Slight cold in the head," returned Tommy rather abruptly, "rotten time
of the year to get a