e from the house, and went with her to
live elsewhere; but she left him and went back to her son, and her
husband forswore the twain.

When women saw him in the road they got past him with their breath
hissing through their teeth in fear. When men passed him they did it
warily, with their fists clenched and their eyes alert. He was shunned
by every one. The strength of his arms also was a thing to be afraid
of, and in the world there was but two welcomes for him, one from his
mother, the other from an old, grey rat that slept in his breast--

"Sure, you're all against him," his mother would say. "Why don't you
give the boy a chance? It's only the hot blood of youth that's working
in him--and he never did it either. Look how kind he is to me! never
the bad word or the hard look! Ye black hearts that blame my boy, look
among yourselves for the villain. No matter who is against you, come
to your mother, my lamb."

He was found one day at the foot of the cliff with his neck broken.
Some said that he had slipped and fallen, some said he had committed
suicide, other some pursed their lips tightly and said nothing. All
were relieved that he was gone, saving his mother only, she mourned for
her only son, and wept bitterly, refusing to be comforted until she
died.

III

She had begun to get thin. Her face was growing sharp and peaked. The
steady curve of her cheek had become a little indeterminate. Her chin
had begun to sag and her eyes to look a little weary. But she had not
observed these things, for we do not notice ourselves very much until
some other person thinks we are worthy of observation and tells us so;
and these changes are so gradual and tiny that we seldom observe them
until we awaken for a moment or two in our middle age and then we get
ready to fall asleep again.

When her uncle died, the solicitors who had administered his will handed
her a small sum of money and intimated that from that date she must hew
out her own path in life, and as she had most of the household furniture
of her late uncle at her disposal, she decided to let lodgings. Setting
about that end with all possible expedition she finished writing
"apartments to let" on a square of pasteboard, and, having placed it
prominently in a window, she folded her mittened hands and sat down with
some trepidation to await the advent of a lodger.

He came in the night time with the stars and the moon. He was running
like a youthful god, she thought