I found Dorothy sitting sedately on the beach, with a mass of black seaweed twined in her hands and her bare feet sparkling white in the sun. Even in the first glow of recognition I realised that she was paler than she had been the summer before, and yet I cannot blame myself for the tactlessness of my question.

“Where’s Edward?” I said; and I looked about the sands for a sailor suit and a little pair of prancing legs.

While I looked Dorothy’s eyes watched mine inquiringly, as if she wondered what I might see.

“Edward’s dead,” she said simply. “He died last year, after you left.”

For a moment I could only gaze at the child in silence, and ask myself what reason there was in the thing that had hurt her so. Now that I knew that Edward played with her no more, I could see that there was a shadow upon her face too dark for her years, and that she had lost, to some extent, that exquisite carelessness of poise which makes children so young. Her voice was so calm that I might have thought her forgetful had I not seen an instant of patent pain in her wide eyes.

“I’m sorry,” I said at length “very, very, sorry indeed. I had brought down my car to take you for a drive, as I promised.”

“Oh! Edward would have liked that,” she answered thoughtfully; “he was so fond of motors.” She swung round suddenly and looked at the sands behind her with staring eyes.

“I thought I heard —” she broke off in confusion.

I, too, had believed for an instant that I had heard something that was not the wind or the distant children or the smooth sea hissing along the beach. During that golden summer which linked me with the dead, Edward had been wont, in moments of elation, to puff up and down the sands, in artistic representation of a nobby, noisy motor-car. But the dead may play no more, and there was nothing there but the sands and the hot sky and Dorothy.

“You had better let me take you for a run, Dorothy,” I said. “The man will drive, and we can talk as we go along.”

She nodded gravely, and began pulling on her sandy stockings.

“It did not hurt him,” she said inconsequently.

The restraint in her voice pained me like a blow.

“Oh, don’t, dear, don’t!” I cried, “There is nothing to do but forget.”

“I have forgotten, quite,” she answered, pulling at her shoe-laces with calm fingers. “It was ten months ago.”

We walked up to the front, where the car was waiting, and Dorothy settled herself among the cushions with a little sigh of contentment, the human quality of which brought me a certain relief. If only she would laugh or cry! I sat down by her side, but the man waited by the open door.

“What is it?” I asked.

“I’m sorry, sir,” he answered, looking about him in confusion, “I thought I saw a young gentleman with you.”

He shut the door with a bang, and in a minute we were running through the town. I knew that Dorothy was watching my face with her wounded eyes; but I did not look at her until the green fields leapt up on either side of the white road.

“It is only for a little while that we may not see him,” I said; “all this is nothing.”

“I have forgotten,” she repeated. “I think this is a very nice motor.”

I had not previously complained of the motor, but I was wishing then that it would cease its poignant imitation of a little dead boy, a boy who would play no more. By the touch of Dorothy’s sleeve against mine I knew that she could hear it too. And the miles flew by, green and brown and golden, whi............