you may
expect us for our usual Thanksgiving Dinner."

I will not say that I had a definite premonition of trouble, I was just
uneasy. I felt inclined to drop all our social engagements and start for
home but I did not carry out the impulse.

On Sunday, the twenty-fifth of November, after a delightful dinner with
Augustus Thomas in his home at New Rochelle, Zulime and I returned to
our apartment in happiest humor, to be met by a telegram which went to
my heart like the thrust of a bayonet. It was from my father. "_Your
mother is very low. Come at once._"

For a few moments I remained standing, like a man stunned by a savage
blow. Then I awoke to the need of haste in getting away to the West. It
was five o'clock in the afternoon, and the last train which would enable
us to connect with the Milwaukee train from Chicago to West Salem, left
at half-past six. "We must make that train," I said to Zulime with a
desperate realization of the need of haste.

The rush of packing, the excitement of getting to the station kept me
from the sinking of spirit, the agony of self-accusation which set in
the moment we were safely in the sleeping car, and speeding on our
homeward way. "If only we can reach her before it is too late," was my
prayer. "I shall never forgive myself for leaving her. I knew she was
not well," I confessed to Zulime, whose serene optimism comforted me, or
at least dulled the edge of my self-reproach. Again I telegraphed that
we were coming, giving the name and number of our train, hoping to have
an encouraging reply from father or the doctor during the evening, but
none came.

The long agonizing hours wore on. A hundred times I accused myself, "I
should not have left her."

At all points where I attacked myself, my wife defended me, excused me,
and yet I could not clear myself--could not rest. In imagination I
pictured that dear, sweet face turned toward the door, and heard that
faint voice asking for me.

It is true I had done many considerate things for her, but I had not
done enough. Money I had given her, and a home, but I had not given her
as much of my time, my service, as I might have done,--as I should have
done. My going away to the city at the very moment when my presence was
most necessary seemed base desertion. While she had been suffering,
longing and lonely, I had been feasting. All my honors, all my writing,
seemed at this moment too slight, too trivial to counter-balance my
mother's need,