s of Paul's shrieks tortured his ears. But in the next
room little Paul was still for ever, and all the ghostly labor was to
no purpose.

I suppose there is some provision in the make of humanity for
overflow grief, some limit impregnable to affliction; for when little
Paul was laid beside his brother, there were still David and
Christina to walk aimlessly in their empty world. Their scars were
deep, and they were crippled with woe, and it seemed to them they
lived as paralytics live, dead in all save in their susceptibility to
torture. Moreover, there was a barrier between them in David's
disastrous foreknowledge, for Christina could not throw off the
thought that it contained the causal elements which had robbed her of
her sons. Pain had fogged her; she could not probe the matter, and
sensations tyrannised over her mind. David, too, was bowed with a
sense of guilt that he could not rise to throw off. All motive was
buried in the kraal; and he and his wife sat apart and spent days and
nights without the traffic of speech.

But Christina was seized with an idea. She woke David in the night
and spoke to him tensely.

"David," she cried, gripping him by the arm. "David! We cannot live
for ever. Do you hear me? Look, David, look hard! Look where you
looked before. Can you see nothing for me--for us, David?"

He was sitting up, and the spell of her inspiration claimed him. He
opened his eyes wide and searched the barren darkness for a sign. He
groped with his mind, tore at the bonds of the present.

"Do you see nothing?" whispered Christina. "Oh, David, there must be
something. Look--look hard!"

For the space of a hundred seconds they huddled on the bed, David
fumbling with the keys of destiny, Christina waiting, breathless.

"Lie down," said David at last. "You are going to die, little cousin.
It is all well." His voice was the calmest in the world. "And you!"
cried Christina; "David, and you?"

"I see nothing," he said.

"Poor David!" murmured his wife, clinging to him. "But I am sure all
will yet be well, David. Have no fear, my husband."

She murmured on in the dark, with his arm about her, and promised him
death, entreated him to believe with her, and coaxed him with the
bait of the grave. They were bride and groom again, they two, and
slept at last in one another's arms.

In the morning all was well with Christina, and she bustled about as
of old. David was still, and hoped ever, with a tired content in