ay. His thin, scholarly face was as
colourless as the fairer one on the pillow, his brows were knit into
rigid lines and his lips were working. He approached the bed, and for a
few moments stood looking down as if trying to give himself time to gain
self-control. Tom saw the girl's soft eyes fixed in anguished entreaty;
there was a struggle, and from the slowly moving lips came a few faint
and broken words.

"Death!--They--never know."

The man flung himself upon his knees and burst into an agony of such
weeping that, seeing it, Tom turned away shuddering.

"No," he said, "they will never know, they who loved you--who loved
you--will never know! God forgive me if I have done wrong. I have been
false that they might be spared. God forgive me for the sin!"

The poor child shivered; she had become still paler, and the breath came
in sharp little puffs through her nostrils.

"God--God!--God!" she panted. But the man did not seem to hear her. He
was praying aloud, a struggling, disjointed prayer.

"O God of sinners," he cried, "Thou who forgivest, Thou who hast died,
forgive--forgive in this hour of death!"

Tom heard no more. He could only listen to the soft, panting breath
sinking lower and lower.

Suddenly the piteous eyes turned towards him--the stranger--as if in
great dread: perhaps they saw in the mere human pity of his face what met
some sharp last need.

He went to his old place as if in answer to the look, and took the poor
little hand once more, closing the warmth of his own over its coldness.
He was weeping like a child.

"Don't be afraid," he said; "--not afraid. It's--it's all right."

And almost as he said it, with her eyes still fixed upon his own, and
with her hand in his, she gave a low sob--and died.

Tom touched the kneeling man upon the shoulder.

"There's no need of that now," he said; "it's over."

CHAPTER IV

When a few minutes later he went into the back room, he found Aunt Mornin
sitting before the big fireplace in which burned a few logs of wood. The
light the snapping sticks gave fell full upon her black face, and upon
the small bundle upon her spacious knee.

As he entered she turned sharply towards him.

"Don't nobody keer nothin' for this yere?" she said, "ain't nobody comin'
nigh? Whar's he? Don't he take no int'rus' in the pore little lonesome
child? I 'spect yo'll haf to take it ye'self, Mars' De Willerby, while I
goes in dar."

Tom stopped short, stricken with