The sound of the voices had awakened the child, and he sat up in the bed, looking with wide-open eyes from father to mother, from mother to father.

Bramwell stood with his back against the wall, staring at his wife and breathing hard. He was stunned, overwhelmed. He felt uncertain of his own identity, of the place around him, and of the child. The only thing of which he felt sure was that he stood face to face with his wife, who had risen from the tomb.

"I did not come," she said, moving out from her position between the bed and the wall, "to see you or to ask mercy or forgiveness of you. You need not reproach me for being alive; because only I fainted, you should not have seen me to-night; you should never have seen me again, for I was on my way to my grave, where I could not go without looking on my child once more. The announcement of my death came only a little while before its time. I shall not see another day."

Her voice was dull and hoarse, the features wasted and pinched, and mottled with marring blotches of scorbutic red.

"This is no place for us to talk," he said, pointing to the child on the bed. "Follow me."

She hesitated.

"I do not want to talk with you; I wish to spare you. I know you would be justified in killing me. But I would not have you suffer because you wish me dead. I shall not trouble you or the world with another day of my wretched life. Cover your face, and let me kiss the boy again, and I will go. I know my way to the river, and I would spare you any harm that might come to you of my dying here--at your hands."

"This is no place, I say, for such a scene or for such words. Follow me."

"You will not kill me?"

"I will not harm you, poor soul."

"Your pity harms me worse than blows."

"Then I will not pity you. Come."

"May I kiss the child once more before I leave the room? You may cover your eyes, so that you may not see your child polluted by my touch."

"You will be free to kiss him when we have done our talk. I shall not hinder you."

He held the door open for her, and with tottering steps and bent head, she went out into the dark and waited for him.

"Lie down now, my child, and try to go to sleep. Mother will come to you later."

The child, overawed, covered himself up and closed his eyes. Bramwell took the lamp off the window-sill, and led the way into the sitting-room.

He shut the door behind them, put the lamp on the table, and, setting a chair for her by it, bade her sit down. She complied in silence, resting her elbow on the table, and covering her face with her hand.

"You said you fainted," he said, "do you feel weak still?"

"A little."

"I keep some brandy in case of sudden illness, for this is a lonely place." It was a relief to him to utter commonplaces. "And there are, or at least were until lately, no neighbours of whom I could borrow."

He poured some out of a pocket-flask, and added water, and handed the glass to her. "Drink that."

"What! you will give me aid under your roof?"

"Under the roof of Heaven. Drink."

She raised the glass to her lips, and swallowed a small quantity.

"All. Drink it all. You have need of it."

She did as she was told.

He began walking up and down the room softly.

"You sent me the boy when you believed you were dying, and when the crisis turned in favour of life you inserted the announcement of your death in order that I might believe myself free of you for ever?"

"Yes. I intended you should never see me or hear of me again."

"That I might be free to marry again if I chose?"

"That was my idea."

"And then you came to bid good-bye to your child before going to the river?"

"Yes; they never would have found out who I was. I left all papers behind me, and cut the marks off my clothes."

"But the love of your child was so strong, you risked everything to bid him a last farewell?"

"I am his mother, and all that is left to me of a heart is in my child. I do not ask you to forgive me for the past. I do not ask your pardon for what I did three years ago; but I do entreat you, as you are a just and merciful man, to forgive me for coming to see my innocent little child!"

"She took her hand from before her face, and, clasping both her hands together, raised them in passionate supplication to him as he passed her in his walk. Her thick, dull voice was full of unutterable woe.

"I forgive you the past and the present utterly. Say no more in that strain. My head is very heavy, and I am trying to think. Do not excite yourself about forgiveness. I am endeavouring to see my way. This has come suddenly and unexpectedly, and my brain seems feeble, and it will not work freely. In a little while all will be plain to me. In the meantime keep quiet."

He spoke very gently.

She groaned and covered her face again. She would have preferred the river to this, but the manner of the man compelled obedience as she had never felt obedience compelled before, and it was obvious he did not wish her to go to the river--yet, at all events.

"It was a terrible risk to run--a terrible risk. Suppose I had married?"

"But I never would have interfered with you, or come near you, or let you know I was alive. You were the last being on earth I wanted to see." She took her hand down from before her face and looked at him earnestly.

"I am sure of that, but you see what has fallen out to-night."

"O, forgive me, and let me go! My lot is bitter enough for what has happened, without reproaches for something that has not occurred. You have not married again? Have you?"

He shook his head, and said with a mournful smile, "No. I have not married again. Well, let that pass. Let that pass. Mentioning it helps me to clear up matters--enables me to see my way."

"May I go now?"

"Not yet. Stay awhile."

"I would rather be in the river than here."

"So would I; but I must not go, for many reasons. There is the child, for example, to go no Higher."

"But I can be of no use to the child. Your coldness is killing me. Why don't you rage at me or let me go? Are you a man of stone? or do you take me for a woman of stone?" she cried passionately, writhing on her chair.

He waved her outburst aside with a gentle gesture. "Nothing can be gained by heat or haste."

"Let me say good-bye to my child and go," she cried vehemently.

"The child and the river can bide awhile; bide you also awhile. It is a long time since we last met."

She grasped her throat with her hand. She was on the point of breaking down. His last words pierced her to the soul. With a superhuman effort she controlled herself and sat silent.

For a minute there was silence. He continued his walk up and down. Gradually his footfalls, which had been light all along, grew fainter and fainter until they became almost inaudible. Gradually his face, which had been perplexed, lost its troubled look and softened into a peaceful smile. It seemed as though he had ceased to be aware of her presence. He looked like a solitary man communing with himself and drawing solace from his thoughts. He looked as though he beheld some beatific vision that yielded heavenly content--as though a voice of calming and elevating melody were reaching him from afar off. When he spoke his tones were fine and infinitely tender, and sounded like a benediction. He saw his way clearly now.

"You risked everything to-night to get a glimpse of your child, a final look, to say a last farewell. You were willing to risk everything here; you were willing to risk hereafter everything that may be the fate of those who lay violent hands upon their own lives. Why need you risk anything at all, either for the boy's sake or in the hereafter, because of laying violent hands upon your life?"

"I do not understand you," she whispered, looking at him in awe. His appearance, his manner, his voice, did not seem of earth.

"Why not stay with your boy and fill your heart with him?"

"What?" she whispered, growing faint and catching the table for support.

"Why not stay with your boy and fill your heart with ministering to him?"

"What? Here? In this place?" she cried in a wavering voice, still no louder than a whisper.

"In this place. Why should you not stay with your child? There is no one so fit to tend and guard a little child as a mother."

"And you?" she asked in a wild intense whisper. "Will you go to the river to hide the head I have dishonoured?"

"No. I too will stay and help you to shield and succour the child. Mother and father are the proper guardians of little ones."

"Frank Mellor, are you mad?" she cried out loud, springing to her feet and dashing her hand across her face to clear her vision.

"No; there isn't substance enough in me now to make a madman."

"And," she cried, starting up and facing him, "Frank Mellor, do you know who I am? Do you know that three years ago I left your house under infamous circumstances, and that I brought shame and sorrow and destruction upon your home and you? Do you know that I have made you a byeword in Beechley and London, and wherever you have been heard of? Do you know that I am your wife?"

She had raised her hoarse voice to its highest pitch. Her eyes flashed. She brandished her arms. Her face blazed red in the undisfigured parts, and the red spots turned purple and livid. She was frantically defending the magnanimity of this man against the baseness of her former self, against the evil of her present reputation, against contact with the leprosy of her sin.

"All that needs to be known, I know," he said, in the same calm, gentle voice. "Years ago I lost my wife. I lost sight of her for a long time. To-night I find a sister."

"Sister!" she cried in a whisper, sinking on a chair, and losing at once all her fierce aspect and enhanced colour.

"To-night I find a sister who is in despair because of the loss of her child. I restore her child to her empty arms, and I say, 'My roof is your roof, and my bread is your bread.'" He lit a candle, and handed it to her. "Go to your room where the boy is, and take him in your arms, for it comforts a mother to have her child in her arms. I shall stay here. It is dawn already, and I have work to do. Good-night."