But his voice trembled a little. The marble child was so plainly marble. And yet it had not always been marble. He was not sure. Yet-- 'I _am_ sure,' he said. 'You did talk to me in the shrubbery, didn't you?' But the marble child did not move or speak. 'You did come and hold my hand last Sunday,' he said, a little louder. And only the empty echoes answered him. 'Come out,' he said then, almost afraid now of the church's insistent silence. 'I've come to live with you altogether. Come out of your marble, do come out!' He reached up to stroke the marble cheek. A sound thrilled him, a loud everyday sound. The big key turning in the lock of the south door. The aunts! 'Now they'll take me back,' said Ernest; 'you might have come.' But it was not the aunts. It was the old pew-opener, come to scrub the chancel. She came slowly in with pail and brush; the pail slopped a little water on to the floor close to Ernest as she passed him, not seeing. Then the marble child moved, turned toward Ernest with speaking lips and eyes that saw. 'You can stay with me forever if you like,' it said, 'but you'll have to see things happen. I have seen things happen.' 'What sort of things?' Ernest asked. 'Terrible things.' 'What things shall I have to see?' '_Her_,'--the marble child moved a free arm to point to the old woman on the chancel steps,--'and your aunt who will be here presently, looking for you. Do you hear the thunder? Presently the lightning will strike the church. It won't hurt us, but it will fall on them.' Ernest remembered in a flash how kind Aunt Emmeline had been when he was ill, how Aunt Jessie had given him his chessmen, and Aunt Harriet had taught him how to make paper rosettes for picture-frames. 'I must go and tell them,' he said. 'If you go, you'll never see me again,' said the marble child, and put its arms round his neck. 'Can't I come back to you when I've told them?' Ernest asked, returning the embrace. 'There will be no coming back,' said the marble child. 'But I want you. I love you best of everybody in the world,' Ernest said. 'I know.' 'I'll stay with you,' said Ernest. The marble child said nothing. 'But if I don't tell them I shall be the same as a murderer,' Ernest whispered. 'Oh! let me go, and come back to you.' 'I shall not be here.' 'But I must go. I must,' said Ernest, torn between love and duty. 'Yes.' 'And I shan't have you any more?' the living child urged. 'You'll have me in your heart,' said the marble child--'that's where I want to be. That's my real home.' They kissed each other again.