retched hand.

At that Adam's wife dropped her knitting to her lap, but Stephen,
seeing nothing of the amazement written in her face, went on in his
broken words to tell them all--of his wife's life, her death, his own
sore temptation, and the voice out of heaven that had called to him.
And then with a moistened eye and a glance at Sunlocks, and in a
lowered tone as if fearing the child might hear, he spoke of what
he meant to do now--of how he would go back to the herrings, and
maybe to sea, or perhaps down into the mines, but never again to
Port-y-Vullin. And, because a lone man was no company for a child,
and could not take a little one with him if he would, he had come to
it at last that he must needs part with little Sunlocks, lending him,
or maybe giving him, to someone he could trust.

"And so," he said, huskily, "I shall say to me often and often, 'The
Governor is a good man and kind to me long, long ago, and I shall
give little Sunlocks to him.'"

He had dropped his head into his breast as he spoke, and being now
finished he stood fumbling his scraggy goatskin cap.

Then Adam's wife, who had listened in mute surprise, drew herself up,
took a long breath, looked first at Stephen, then at Adam, then back
at Stephen, and said in a bated whisper--

"Well! Did any living soul ever hear the like in this island before?"

Not rightly understanding what this might mean, poor Stephen looked
back at her, in his weak, dazed way, but made her no answer.

"Children might be scarce," she said, and gave a little angry toss of
her head.

Still the meaning of what she said had not worked its way through
Stephen's slow wit, and he mumbled in his poor blundering fashion:

"He is all I have, ma'am."

"Lord-a-massy, man," she cried, sharply, "but we might have every
child in the parish at your price."

Stephen's fingers now clutched at his cap, his parted lips quivered,
and again he floundered out, stammering like an idiot:

"But I love him, ma'am, more nor all the world."

"Then I'll thank you to keep him," she answered, hotly; and after
that there was dead silence for a moment.

In all Stephen's reckoning never once had he counted on this--that
after he had brought himself to that sore pass, at which he could
part with Sunlocks and turn his back on him, never more to be cheered
by his sunny face and merry tongue, never again to be wakened by him
in the morning, never to listen for his gentle breathing in the
nigh