.

Then the red-haired woman turned on her, mad with the torture of her
frustrate passion.

"He _will_ come! He _will_ come, I tell you. I've felt him coming.
I've felt it in my bones. I've dreamt about it night after night.
I've been afraid to meet the postman lest he should bring another
letter. I've been afraid to go along the station road lest I should
meet _him_. I'm afraid now to look out of that window lest I should
see him standing there with his face against the pane."

She crossed to the window and drew down the blind. For a moment her
shadow was flung across it, monstrously agitated, the huge hands
working.

The man outside saw nothing more, but he heard his mother's voice
and he took hope again.

"For shame, Minnie, for shame, to speak of poor Steevy so. One would
think you might have a little more affection for your only brother."

"Look here, Mother" (Minnie again!), "that's all sentimental humbug.
Can you look me in the face and honestly say you'd be glad to see
your only son?"

(The son's heart yearned, straining for the answer. It came
quavering.)

"My dear, I shall not see him. I'm a poor, weak old woman, and I
know that the Lord will not send me any burden that I cannot bear."

He crept from his hiding-place out into the silent lane. He had
drawn his breath tight, but his chest still shook with the sob he
had strangled. "My God!" he muttered, "I'll take off the burden."

Then his sob broke out again, and it sounded more like a laugh than
a sob. "The dollars--they shall have them. Every blessed one of the
damned five million!"

He looked at his watch by the light of the gas-lamp in the lane. He
had just time to catch the last train down; time, too, to stop the
carrier's cart with the gifts that would have told the tale of his
returning.

So, with a quick step, he went back by the way he had come, out of
the place where the dead had buried their dead--until the Day of
Judgment.

THE GIFT

I

He had not been near her for two months. It was barely five minutes'
walk from his house in Bedford Square to her rooms in Montagu
Street, and last year he used to go to see her every week. He did
not need the reminder of her letter, for he had been acutely aware,
through the term that separated them, of the date when he had last
seen her. Still, he was not sure how much longer he might have kept
away if it had not been for the note that told him in two lines that
she had been ill, and