an waited by the
open door.

"What is it?" I asked.

"I'm sorry, sir," he answered, looking about him in confusion, "I
thought I saw a young gentleman with you."

He shut the door with a bang, and in a minute we were running through
the town. I knew that Dorothy was watching my face with her wounded
eyes; but I did not look at her until the green fields leapt up on
either side of the white road.

"It is only for a little while that we may not see him," I said; "all
this is nothing."

"I have forgotten," she repeated. "I think this is a very nice
motor."

I had not previously complained of the motor, but I was wishing then
that it would cease its poignant imitation of a little dead boy, a
boy who would play no more. By the touch of Dorothy's sleeve against
mine I knew that she could hear it too. And the miles flew by, green
and brown and golden, while I wondered what use I might be in the
world, who could not help a child to forget, Possibly there was
another way, I thought.

"Tell me how it happened," I said.

Dorothy looked at me with inscrutable eyes, and spoke in a voice
without emotion.

"He caught a cold, and was very ill in bed. I went in to see him,
and he was all white and faded. I said to him, `How are you Edward?'
and he said, `I shall get up early in the morning to catch beetles.'
I didn't see him any more."

"Poor little chap!" I murmured.

"I went to the funeral," she continued monotonously, "It was very
rainy, and I threw a little bunch of flowers down into the hole.
There was a whole lot of flowers there; but I think Edward liked
apples better than flowers."

"Did you cry?" I said cruelly.

She paused. "I don't know. I suppose so. It was a long time ago; I
think I have forgotten."

Even while she spoke I heard Edward puffing along the sands: Edward
who had been so fond of apples.

"I cannot stand this any longer," I said aloud. "Let's get out and
walk in the woods for a change."

She agreed, with a depth of comprehension that terrified me; and the
motor pulled up with a jerk at a spot where hardly a post served to
mark where the woods commenced and the wayside grass stopped. We took
one of the dim paths which the rabbits had made and forced our way
through the undergrowth into the peaceful twilight of the trees.

"You haven't got very sunburnt this year," I said as we walked.

"I don't know why. I've been out on the beach all the days.
Sometimes I've played, too."

I did not a