What she was most afraid of now was that time would take him from her and wipe out the memory of him. She had no picture of him; perhaps his features little by little would fade for her. She sat every day and tried to think how he looked. 'Do I see him exactly as he was?' she said. Week by week, as the winter wore away, she began to long for the time when he would be taken from the mortuary and buried in the ground, so that she could go to his grave and speak with him. He should lie towards the west, that was the most beautiful, and she would deck the grave with roses. There should also be a hedge round the grave, and a seat where she could sit often and often. People would perhaps wonder at it; but they were not to know that her child did not lie in the family grave; and they were sure to think it strange that she placed flowers on an unknown grave and sat there for hours. What could she say to explain it? Sometimes she thought that she could, perhaps, do it in this way: First she would go to the big grave and place a large bouquet of flowers on it, and remain sitting there for some time, and afterwards she would steal away to the little grave; and he would be sure to be content with the little flower she would secretly give him. But even if he were satisfied with the one little flower, could she be? Could she really come quite near to him in this way? Would he not notice that she was ashamed of him? Would he not understand what a disgrace his birth had been to her? No, she would have to protect him from that. He must only think that the joy of having possessed him weighed against all the rest. At last the winter was giving way. One could see the spring was coming. The snow-cover began to melt, and the earth to peep out. It would still be a week or two before the ground was thawed, but it would not be long now before the dead could be taken away from the mortuary. And she longed--she longed so exceedingly for it. Could she still picture to herself how he looked? She tried every day; but it was easier when it was winter. Now, when the spring was coming, it seemed as if he faded away from her. She was filled with despair. If she were only soon able to sit by his grave and be near to him again, then she would be able to see him again, to love him. Would he never be laid in his little grave? She must be able to see him again, see him through her whole life; she had no one else to love.