k came home the last time. Above
the sound Brock's voice spoke, every trick of inflection so familiar, so
sweet, that the joy of it was sharp, like pain.

"Mother, I'm coming to take Hughie's hand--to take Hughie's hand," he
repeated.

And with that Mavourneen's great cry rose above his voice. And suddenly
she was awake. Somewhere outside the house, yet near, the dog was
loudly, joyfully crying. Out of the deep stillness of the night burst
the sound of the joyful crying.

The woman shot from her bed and ran barefooted, her heart beating madly,
into the darkness of the hall to the landing on the stairway. Something
halted her. There was a broad, uncurtained pane of glass in the front
door of the house. From the landing one might look down the stone steps
outside and see clearly in the bright moonlight as far as the beginning
of the rose archway. As she stood gasping, from beneath the flowers
Brock stepped into the moonlight and began, unhurried, buoyant, as she
had but now seen him in her dream, to mount the steps. Mavourneen
pressed at his side, and his hand was on the dog's head. As he came, he
lifted his face to his mother with the accustomed, every-day smile which
she knew, as if he were coming home, as he had come home on many a
moonlit evening from a dance in town to talk the day over with her. As
she stared, standing in the dark on the landing, her pulse racing, yet
still with the stillness of infinity, an arm came around her, a hand
gripped her shoulder, and young Hugh's voice spoke.

"Mother! It's Brock!" he whispered.

At the words she fled headlong down to the door and caught at the
handle. It was fastened, and for a moment she could not think of the
bolt. Brock stood close outside; she saw the light on his brown head and
the bend in the long, strong fingers that caressed Mavourneen's fur. He
smiled at her happily--Brock--three feet away. Just as the bolt
loosened, with an inexplicable, swift impulse she was cold with terror.
For the half of a second, perhaps, she halted, possessed by some
formless fear stronger than herself--humanity dreading something not
human, something unknown, overwhelming. She halted not a whole
second--for it was Brock. Brock! Wide open she flung the door and sprang
out.

There was no one there. Only Mavourneen stood in the cold moonlight, and
cried, and looked up, puzzled, at empty air.

"Oh, Brock, Brock! Oh, dear Brock!" the woman called and flung out her
arms. "Brock--Broc