"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.
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