was yearning toward Jack's room upstairs. She
wanted to go up and lie down on Jack's bed; and put her head on Jack's
pillow. It seemed to her that it would bring her a little closer to
Jack. And then she had a swift vision of Taylor Rock, where Jack was
said to have his cave. She closed her eyes and shuddered. She could
not get close to Jack--she had never been close to him, since he
passed babyhood. Perhaps.... The girl, Marion--had Jack loved her? She
was grown used to the jealousy that filled her when she thought of
Marion. She forced herself now to think pityingly of the girl, dead up
there in that awful snow.

She went upstairs, forgetting to telephone to the maids as she had
intended. She moved slowly, apathetically, pausing long before the
closed door of Jack's room. She would not go in, after all. Why dig
deeper into the grief that must be mastered somehow, if she would go
on living? She remembered the maids, and when she had put on one of
her soft, silk house gowns that she used to like so well, she went
slowly down the stairs, forgetting that she had a telephone in her
room, her mind swinging automatically to the one in the hall that she
had used as she came in. She had just reached it when the doctor came
hurrying up the steps and pressed the bell button. She saw him dimly
through the curtained glass of the door, and frowned while she let him
in. And then--

She knew that the doctor was propelled violently to one side by some
one coming behind him, and she knew that she was dreaming the rest of
it. The feel of Jack's arm around her shoulders, and Jack's warm,
young lips on her cheeks and her lips and her eyelids, and the sound
of Jack's voice calling her endearing pet names that she had never
heard him speak while she was awake and he was with her--It was a
delicious dream, and Mrs. Singleton Corey smiled tremulously while the
dream lasted.

"Gee, I'd like to give you a _real_ old bear-hug, but I've got a bum
wing and I can't. Gee, we musta passed each other on the road
somewhere, because I was streaking it down here to see you--gee, but
you look good to me!--and you were streaking it up there to see me--"
The adorable young voice hesitated and deepened to a yearning
half-whisper. "Did you go away up there just because you--_wanted_ to
see me? Did you do that, mother? Honest?"

Mrs. Singleton Corey snapped into wakefulness, but she still leaned
heavily within her curve of Jack's good arm. Her eyes--brown