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But she made no attempt to burn the paper, and all her courage seemed to fade completely out as her mother raised to hers a pair of eyes that were filled with a world of piteousness.

The latter shook her greying head.

“I won’t go crazy, child,” she said in a low, monotonous voice. “Give me time, dear. You see, he was my boy—my Jim. He was everything to me—my son, and—and he’s gone.”

Something stirred in the girl—something suddenly spurred her. It was an expression of youthful hope, which, in calmer moments, she would have realised was ill-enough founded.

“But has he?” she demanded, almost vehemently. “You don’t know—we don’t know! You’ve read that story till you can’t read it right. Our judgment’s been snowed under in the scare of it. That’s so, sure! What is it? Why, it’s just a news story,” she cried, flinging scornful emphasis into her tone. “It’s a fool news story they love to scare folks with, an’ later they’ll contradict it without pity for the worry and grief it’s caused to the folks who’ve read it. I’ve thought and thought and I tell you it’s—it’s not real. I don’t believe he’s dead. Here, I’ll show you. I’ll read it. You sit there and just listen. Will you? Then you’ll see.”