Her heart beat furiously as she opened it. Even if he only sent a
little it would be so welcome now when they were almost at the end. If
he had been generous how wonderful it would be for her to help the man
to whom nothing was too much to give her. The fact that her brother had
cabled strengthened the belief that he had hastened to come to her
rescue. She opened the cable and read it. Then she fell back on the
pillow with a low, faint moan.

When, hours later, O'Connell returned from a vain search for work he
found her senseless, with the cable in her fingers. He tried to recover
her without success. He sent a neighbour for a doctor. As he watched
the worn, patient face, his heart full to bursting, the thought flashed
through him--what could have happened to cause this collapse? He became
conscious of the cable he had found tightly clasped in her hand. He
picked it up and read it. It was very brief:

You have made your bed, lie in it.

Nathaniel Kingsnorth.

was all it said.

CHAPTER III

THE BIRTH OF PEG

Toward morning the doctor placed a little mite of humanity in
O'Connell's arms. He looked down at it in a stupor. It had really come
to pass. Their child--Angela's and his! A little baby-girl. The tiny
wail from this child, born of love and in sorrow, seemed to waken his
dull senses. He pressed the mite to him as the hot tears flowed down
his cheeks. A woman in one of the adjoining flats who had kindly
offered to help took the child away from him. The doctor led him to the
bedside. He looked down at his loved one. A glaze was over Angela's
eyes as she looked up at him. She tried to smile. All her suffering was
forgotten. She knew only pride and love. She was at peace. She raised
her hand, thin and transparent now, to O'Connell. He pressed it to his
lips.

She whispered:

"My baby. Bring me--my baby."

He took it from the woman and placed it in Angela's weak arms. She
kissed it again and again. The child wailed pitifully. The effort had
been too much for Angela's failing strength. Consciousness left her.

. . . . . . .

Just before sunrise she woke. O'Connell was sitting beside her. He had
never moved. The infant was sleeping on some blankets on the couch--the
woman watching her.

Angela motioned her husband to bend near to her. Her eyes shone with
unearthly brightness. He put his ear near her lips. Her voice was very,