ghtened you?"

"Yes. And I remember the bees.... I have ridden through and about the
Park several times, but I can't seem to get anything back. I felt like
asking questions, as I did long ago, of my mother."

Beth wanted to tell him that she would ride with him sometime and
answer questions, but he seemed very near the deep places, and she
dared not urge nor interrupt.

"It was very clear to me then, that we needed each other," he added. "A
child knows that. She must have answered all the questions in the
world, for I was always satisfied. I wonder that she had time to think
about her own things.... Isn't it remarkable, and I don't remember
anything she said?"

Bedient seemed to be thinking aloud, as if this were the right place to
talk of these things. They had been in the foreground of his mind
continually, but never uttered before.

"It was always above words--our relation," he went on presently.
"Though we must have talked and talked--it is not the words I
remember--but realizations of truth which came to me afterward, from
them. What a place for a little boy's hand to be!...

"I remember the long voyage, and she was always near. There were many
strange things--far too strange to remember; and then, the sick room.
She was a long time there. I could not be with her as much as I wanted.
It was very miserable all around, though it seems the people were not
unkind. They must have been very poor. And then, one night I knew that
my mother was going to die. I could not move, when this came to me. I
tried not to breathe, tried to die too; and some one came in and shook
me, and it was all red about my eyes.

"They took me to her, but I couldn't tell what I knew, though she saw
it. And this I remember, though it was in the dark. The others were
sent away, and she made a place for me on her arm, and she laughed, and
whispered and whispered. Why, she made me over that night on her arm!

"She must have whispered it a thousand times--so it left a lasting
impression. Though I could not always see her, _she would always be
near_! That remains from the night, though none of the words ever came
back. I never lost that, and it was true.... Do you see how great she
was to laugh that night?... And how she had to struggle to leave that
message on such a little boy's mind?... More wonderful and wonderful it
becomes, as I grow older. She was dying, and we had been such dependent
lovers. She was not leaving me, as it _had_ been wit