“I had always loved the photographs of my baby Nigel so tenderly—I seemed to have known and loved you at every age. At times I saw each age in you and adored it as I saw it. “And the years would pass, and you would grow up. After all, when you were a man of twenty, I should only be forty-eight. We should certainly have found each other by then, and my darling would know me, and would not think me old, for had he not written: ‘Wherever I may be I am loving you still, with my whole being. I am all your own, and I hold you mine for ever.... We _may_ meet again on earth, if it be God’s will for us.’ I knew you meant by this, a fresh incarnation for both; but I could not see why I must wait during long, lonely years, or why death must come first. “I began to pray with desperate, frantic energy that my darling might come back without delay. “A wild, sweet joy and comfort came to soothe my agony. “I walked along the shore and prayed aloud. I roamed the moors in paroxysms of petition. I prayed all night. I thought of the many little bodies there must be, prepared and ready, just waiting for a splendid, eager spirit to enter them at the moment of birth. Could not my darling be sent to one of these and, growing up in it to his full beauty and stature, come and find his wife again? “At last, one night, I remembered that morning when you came in from a swim at sunrise, when I had been so fearful for your safety, and how I had said: ‘Oh, Nigel, my dearest! Some day those treacherous waters will swallow you up, and you will come back to me no more.’ But you, lying in my arms, had made answer: ‘I shall always come back to you, my sweet. If I lay fifty fathoms deep and _you_ called, I should hear and come back.’ “I remembered this, just before midnight, on the 11th of September. “I had begun to feel as if all my prayers and pleadings with heaven had been useless, had failed to obtain any response. “Now, I would take my husband at his word, and call him—call him—call him! “I slipped from my bed, opened the French window and went out on to the balcony. “There stood the telescope through which I used to watch you while you swam! “A high wind blew, warm but boisterous. “The sea roared and pounded against the rocks at the base of the cliff. “I stood in the wind-swept darkness and lifted my eyes to the distant stars. “‘Nigel!’ I called aloud: ‘Oh, Nigel, my lover, my husband, come back to earth! Come out of Eternity, back into Time. I cannot _live_ on this earth without you. You promised—you _promised_ to come from fifty fathoms deep, if I called. NIGEL! COME! Ask to be born once more. Then grow up quickly, and seek, and seek, and seek, belovèd, until you find me. Nigel, your own wife calls! Oh, Nigel! COME!’ “Long I stood, with clasped hands, gazing upward to the stars. “The wind moaned and shrieked through the pines. The sea roared in the distance. Behind the house, an owl hooted, like a lost soul in agony, and seemed to mock my prayer.