The Horror Megapack_ 25 Classic and Modern Horror Stories ( PDFDrive )

be marrying soon. That will also mean that your mother will have many little
grandchildren to console her for your loss. I will be the one bereft, if you leave
me. I am the only one who really needs you. I don’t say I will go to the bad, as
you may have very foolishly persuaded yourself your family will do without
you, but I trust to your instincts to make you realize how unhappy, how
inconsolable I shall be. I shall be the loneliest man on earth!”
She rubbed her face deeper into his flannels, and tightened her embrace. “Can’t
you come, too?” she asked.
“No; you must live with me wholly or not at all. Your people are not my
people, their ways are not my ways. We should not get along. And if you lived
with me over there you might as well stay here, for your influence over them
would be quite as removed. Moreover, if they are of the right stuff, the memory
of you will be quite as potent for good as your actual presence.”
“Not unless I died.”
Again something within him trembled. “Do you believe you are going to die
young?” he blurted out.
But she would not answer.
He entered the nursery abruptly the next day and found her packing her dolls.
When she saw him, she sat down and began to weep hopelessly. He knew then
that his fate was sealed. And when, a year later, he received her last little scrawl,
he was almost glad that she went when she did.