s quaking limbs.
"Good God, you are mad!" he cried, aghast.

"Get it," she panted; "get it quickly, and wish--Oh, my boy, my boy!"

Her husband struck a match and lit the candle. "Get back to bed," he
said, unsteadily. "You don't know what you are saying."

"We had the first wish granted," said the old woman, feverishly; "why not
the second?"

"A coincidence," stammered the old man.

"Go and get it and wish," cried his wife, quivering with excitement.

The old man turned and regarded her, and his voice shook. "He has been
dead ten days, and besides he--I would not tell you else, but--I could
only recognize him by his clothing. If he was too terrible for you to
see then, how now?"

"Bring him back," cried the old woman, and dragged him toward the door.
"Do you think I fear the child I have nursed?"

He went down in the darkness, and felt his way to the parlour, and then
to the mantelpiece. The talisman was in its place, and a horrible fear
that the unspoken wish might bring his mutilated son before him ere he
could escape from the room seized upon him, and he caught his breath as
he found that he had lost the direction of the door. His brow cold with
sweat, he felt his way round the table, and groped along the wall until
he found himself in the small passage with the unwholesome thing in his
hand.

Even his wife's face seemed changed as he entered the room. It was white
and expectant, and to his fears seemed to have an unnatural look upon it.
He was afraid of her.

"Wish!" she cried, in a strong voice.

"It is foolish and wicked," he faltered.

"Wish!" repeated his wife.

He raised his hand. "I wish my son alive again."

The talisman fell to the floor, and he regarded it fearfully. Then he
sank trembling into a chair as the old woman, with burning eyes, walked
to the window and raised the blind.

He sat until he was chilled with the cold, glancing occasionally at the
figure of the old woman peering through the window. The candle-end,
which had burned below the rim of the china candlestick, was throwing
pulsating shadows on the ceiling and walls, until, with a flicker larger
than the rest, it expired. The old man, with an unspeakable sense of
relief at the failure of the talisman, crept back to his bed, and a
minute or two afterward the old woman came silently and apathetically
beside him.

Neither spoke, but lay silently listening to the ticking of the clock. A
stair creaked, and a squ