here Jemmy had stood above the birds, seeing that very window; and the
last look of that poor pretty young mother when her soul brightened and
got free, seemed to shine down from it.

"O man, man, man!" I says, and I went on my knees beside the bed; "if
your heart is rent asunder and you are truly penitent for what you did,
Our Saviour will have mercy on you yet!"

As I leaned my face against the bed, his feeble hand could just move
itself enough to touch me. I hope the touch was penitent. It tried to
hold my dress and keep hold, but the fingers were too weak to close.

I lifted him back upon the pillows and I says to him:

"Can you hear me?"

He looked yes.

"Do you know me?"

He looked yes, even yet more plainly.

"I am not here alone. The Major is with me. You recollect the Major?"

Yes. That is to say he made out yes, in the same way as before.

"And even the Major and I are not alone. My grandson--his godson--is
with us. Do you hear? My grandson."

The fingers made another trial to catch my sleeve, but could only creep
near it and fall.

"Do you know who my grandson is?"

Yes.

"I pitied and loved his lonely mother. When his mother lay a dying I
said to her, 'My dear, this baby is sent to a childless old woman.' He
has been my pride and joy ever since. I love him as dearly as if he had
drunk from my breast. Do you ask to see my grandson before you die?"

Yes.

"Show me, when I leave off speaking, if you correctly understand what I
say. He has been kept unacquainted with the story of his birth. He has
no knowledge of it. No suspicion of it. If I bring him here to the side
of this bed, he will suppose you to be a perfect stranger. It is more
than I can do to keep from him the knowledge that there is such wrong and
misery in the world; but that it was ever so near him in his innocent
cradle I have kept from him, and I do keep from him, and I ever will keep
from him, for his mother's sake, and for his own."

He showed me that he distinctly understood, and the tears fell from his
eyes.

"Now rest, and you shall see him."

So I got him a little wine and some brandy, and I put things straight
about his bed. But I began to be troubled in my mind lest Jemmy and the
Major might be too long of coming back. What with this occupation for my
thoughts and hands, I didn't hear a foot upon the stairs, and was
startled when I saw the Major stopped short in the middle of the room by
the eye