"I'll speak to him. He won't do it again. Now please, Mark, let me get you the phenobarbital. I'll stay up until David—"
The ringing phone, a clamor in the darkness, interrupted her. Mark Williams reached for it. The extension was beside his bed.
"Hello," he said. And then, although she could not hear the answering voice, she felt him stiffen. And she knew. As well as if she could hear the words she knew, with a mother's instinct for disaster.
"Yes," Dr. Williams said. "Yes ... I see ... I understand ... I'll come at once.... Thank you for calling."
He slid out of bed before she could stop him.
"An emergency call." He spoke quietly. "I have to go." He began to throw on his clothes.
"It's David," she said. "Isn't it?" She sat up. "Don't try to keep me from knowing. It's about David."
"Yes," he said. His voice was very tired. "David is hurt. I have to go to him. An accident."
"He's dead." She said it steadily. "David's dead, isn't he, Mark?"
He came over and sat beside her and put his arms around her.
"Edith," he said. "Edith—Yes, he's dead. Forty minutes ago. The car—went over a curve. They have him—at the County morgue. They want me to—identify him. Identify him. Edith! You see, the car caught fire!"
"I'm coming with you," she said. "I'm coming with you!"
The taxi waited in a pool of darkness between two street lights. The long, low building which was the County morgue, a blue lamp over its door, stood below the street level. A flight of concrete steps went down to it from the sidewalk. Ten minutes before, Dr. Mark Williams had gone down those steps. Now he climbed back up them, stiffly, wearily, like an old man.
Edith was waiting in the taxi, sitting forward on the edge of the seat, hands clenched. As he reached the last step she opened the door and stepped out.
"Mark," she asked shakily, "was it—"
"Yes, it's David." His voice was a monotone. "Our son. I've completed the formalities. For now the only thing we can do is go home."
"I'm going to him!" She tried to pass. He caught her wrist. Discretely the taxi driver pretended to doze.
"No, Edith! There's no need. You mustn't—see him!"
"He's my son!" she cried. "Let me go!"
"No! What have you got under your coat?"
"It's the bell, the rose-crystal bell!" she cried. "I'm going to ring it where David can hear!"
Defiantly she brought forth her hand, clutching the little bell. "It brought you back, Mark! Now it's going to bring back David!"
"Edith!" he said in horror. "You mustn't believe that's possible. You can't. Those were coincidences. Now let me have it."
"No! I'm going to ring it." Violently she tried to break out of his grip. "I want David back! I'm going to ring the bell!"
She got her hand free. The crystal bell rang in the quiet of the early morning with an eerie thinness, penetrating the silence like a silver knife.
"There!" Edith Williams panted. "I've rung it. I know you don't believe, but I do. It'll bring David back." She raised her voice. "David!" she called. "David, son! Can you hear me?"
"Edith," Dr. Williams groaned. "You're just tormenting yourself. Come home. Please come home."
"Not until David has come back.... David, David, can you hear me?" She rang the bell again, rang it until Dr. Williams seized it, then she let him take it.
"Edith, Edith," he groaned. "If only you had let me come alone...."
"Mark, listen!"
"What?"
"Listen!" she whispered with fierce urgency.
He was silent. And then fingers of horror drew themselves down his spine at the clear, youthful voice that came up to them from the darkness below.
"Mother?... Dad?... Where are you?"
"David!" Edith Williams breathed. "It's David! Let me go! I must go to him."
"No, Edith!" her husband whispered frantically, as the voice below called again.
"Dad?... Mother?... Are you up there? Wait for me."
"Let me go!" she sobbed. "David, we're here! We're up here, son!"
"Edith!" Mark Williams gasped. "If you've ever loved me, listen to me. You mustn't go down there. David—I had to identify him by his class ring and his wallet. He was burned—terribly burned!"
"I'm going to him!" She wrenched herself free and sped for the steps, up which now was coming a tall form, a shadow shrouded in the darkness.
Dr. Williams, horror knotting his stomach, leaped to stop her. But he slipped and fell headlong on the pavement, so that she was able to pant down the stairs to meet the upcoming figure.
"Oh, David," she sobbed, "David!"
"Hey, Mom!" The boy held her steady. "I'm sorry. I'm terribly sorry. But I didn't know what had happened until I got home and you weren't there and then one of the fellows from the fraternity called me. I realized they must have made a mistake, and you'd come here, and I called for a taxi and came out here. My taxi let me off at the entrance around the block, and I've been looking for you down there.... Poor Pete!"
"Pete?" she asked.
"Pete Friedburg. He was driving the old car. I lent him the keys and my driver's license. I shouldn't have—but he's older and he kept begging me...."
"Then—then it's Pete who was killed?" she gasped. "Pete who was—burned?"
"Yes, Pete. I feel terrible about lending him the car. But he was supposed to be a good driver. And then them calling you, you and Dad thinking it was me—"
"Then Mark was right. Of course he was right." She was laughing and sobbing now. "It's just a bell, a pretty little bell, that's all."
"Bell? I don't follow you, Mom."
"Never mind," Edith Williams gasped. "It's just a bell. It hasn't any powers over life and death. It doesn't bring back and it doesn't take away. But let's get back up to your father. He may be thinking that the bell—that the bell really worked."
They climbed the rest of the steps. Dr. Mark Williams still lay where he had fallen headlong on the pavement. The cab driver was bending over him, but there was nothing to be done. The crystal bell had been beneath him when he fell, and it had broken. One long, fine splinter of crystal was embedded in his heart.