An hour passed, and then another, and still another, and nothing could be heard but the ticking of the clock, and the occasional sighs of the unhappy man on the bed, which became so painful to me that I began to watch for and dread them, and wonder whether the most pitiful thing in the world was not a strong man weeping. I have since heard my own children sob in their sleep as Jo Erring did that night, and felt again how wretched I was as I sat there waiting for him to speak. When it was time for the man to return from town, I began to listen for the first noise of his approach, until at last, becoming nervous that he delayed so long, I went down to the front door, and out to the gate to look down the road, when I found that the snow was falling in earnest, threatening a great storm. Another hour passed, and at last I heard the sound of wheels. Hurrying down to the gate, I received from the hands of the assistant a note, and when I went back to the light, I was alarmed to find that it was from a neighbor of ours, and to the effect that my mother was dangerously ill, and that my coming should not be delayed. I went into Jo’s room, and told him of it, hoping he would propose to go to town with me, but as he paid no attention, I left the note on the table beside him, and hurried away. The horses were jaded from the long day’s work, but I urged them along the rough roads at a rapid pace. Every bush had grown into a white-robed phantom, and I imagined that one of them was my father, pleading to be taken up, and hurried to the end of his long journey; that another was my mother come out to meet me, distressed at my long delay; in still another I could see a resemblance to Jo as I left him lying on the bed, except that the drapery of white covered everything. I saw Mateel kneeling at a tomb in which I thought must be buried her hope, and so many mounds took the shape of graves that I mercilessly lashed the horses, and it was but an hour after midnight when the lights of Twin Mounds began to appear. When I came into the town, the houses seemed to be great monuments of white, as though the people had said their prayers and died when the snow came, and down the street I could see the light which was always shining for one who never came.